{"id":25158,"date":"2026-06-05T19:04:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=25158"},"modified":"2026-06-08T21:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:56:30","slug":"the-philippine-american-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=25158","title":{"rendered":"The Philippine-American War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs\" data-active-tab=\"0\"><ul class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-links\"><\/ul>\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Intro<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Themes<\/strong><br>US Empire &amp; Imperialism <br>Historiography <br>Soldiers&#8217; Experiences<br>Worlds Fairs<br><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Periods &amp; Events<\/strong><br>19th Century<br>20th Century<br>Spanish-American War<br>Philippine-American War<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Skills &amp; Document Types<\/strong><br>Drawings <br>Postcards &amp; Letters<br>Scrapbooks<br>Speeches<br><br>Close Reading<br>Image Analysis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Use this essay and source set to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Understand the Philippine-American War.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Connect US imperialism in the Philippines to wars against Indigenous peoples in North America.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Analyze US opinions on the war through the writings and drawings of politicians, journalists, and soldiers. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Practice critical image analysis using images of imperial displays at the St. Louis World&#8217;s Fair.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Essay<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contents<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"#intro-philippines\" data-type=\"internal\" data-id=\"#intro-philippines\">Introduction<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#context-1898\">Contextualizing 1898<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#cuba-philippines\">From Cuba to the Philippines<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#war-on-ground\">The Philippine-American War on the Ground<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#colonial-rule\">US Colonial Rule and Ongoing Military Violence<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#culture-of-empire\">Visual and Material Culture of Empire<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"intro-philippines\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SK1J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"729\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-729x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white map of the Philippines folded out from a printed book.\" class=\"wp-image-24708\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.711916883448507;width:303px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-729x1024.jpg 729w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-768x1079.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-1094x1536.jpg 1094w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-1458x2048.jpg 1458w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-scaled.jpg 1823w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 729px) 100vw, 729px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SK1J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dean Worcester, &#8220;The Philippine Islands&#8221; in <em>The Philippine Islands and Their People<\/em> (1899)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&nbsp;didn\u2019t&nbsp;learn&nbsp;anything about the Philippine-American War in high school.&nbsp;I\u2019d&nbsp;hoped this had changed since the late 1990s, but in a recent (and deeply unscientific) poll I conducted in a college history class, students who had graduated from high school between 2018&nbsp;and&nbsp;2024 shared that they also&nbsp;hadn\u2019t&nbsp;learned about the Philippine-American War in their history classes. There may be many reasons for this gap in our collective understanding: there is a lot of history to cover in a single high-school&nbsp;US&nbsp;History class, and the authors of our textbooks must always make choices about what stays and what goes.&nbsp;But this exclusion might also reflect the ways that the Philippine-American War challenges a core idea about the United States \u2014 namely, that it stands for democracy and freedom around the world, and that as a nation whose origin story centered the rejection of an outside colonial power, the United States would not embrace an overseas empire of its own.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The history of the Philippine-American War&nbsp;unsettles our understanding of the nation\u2019s commitment to these values, and perhaps this is one possible explanation for why I consistently encounter students whose formal learning about this war begins and ends with the&nbsp;US&nbsp;defeat of the Spanish fleet by Commodore Dewey in the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay. The fighting that lasted more than a decade, and the&nbsp;US&nbsp;colonial presence in the Philippines that followed, are often fast-forwarded through in favor of focusing on World War II and the shared experiences of US and Filipino soldiers in the fight against Axis forces. In 1946, the United States acknowledged the sovereignty of the Philippines, ending a decades-long&nbsp;US&nbsp;colonial government whose legacies persist into the present.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the essay that follows, I offer an overview of the Philippine-American War. The Newberry Library\u2019s collections contain a wide range of material that can help us think about the lived experience of this war and its broad reach, from the letters and diaries of soldiers, reporters, and civil servants,&nbsp;to photographs and newspaper coverage shaping how people in the United States understood the Philippines, a diverse archipelago half a world away. It is important to acknowledge, however, that&nbsp;the Newberry\u2019s&nbsp;collections offer limited access to how Filipino people experienced this war and the American colonial regime that followed. It is always important to think about how the materials in archives are&nbsp;acquired&nbsp;and preserved, because&nbsp;these processes have their own histories and their own politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Imperial ideas and actions stretched across many parts of people\u2019s lives on both sides of the Pacific,&nbsp;and to understand the Philippine-American War, we need to begin in the&nbsp;US&nbsp;West.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"context-1898\">Contextualizing 1898<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Historians spend a lot of time thinking about beginnings and endings. After all, what kind of story we tell (and what kind of argument we make) has a lot to do with where our story starts and stops\u2014and from which perspectives we&nbsp;look. There are many options for where we might start&nbsp;to tell the history of the Philippine-American War. We might begin with the histories of the many different people who lived in the Philippines before Spanish colonialism. We might examine the nature of the Spanish empire and the circulation of capital, goods, and people between what is now Mexico and the Philippines.&nbsp;Or,&nbsp;we might look at resistance to Spanish colonial power and plans for revolution organized by the Katipunan, a secret society in the Philippines, in the early 1890s.&nbsp;Looking from the perspective of&nbsp;US&nbsp;history, the emphasis is often on the Spanish-American War (1898) and the ways this led to the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). But only in more recent decades have some scholars emphasized the connections between late&nbsp;nineteenth-century United States military action in the western part of North America and its military activities in the Pacific at the turn of the twentieth century.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AQXM?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"778\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-778x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Full-page black-and-white illustration of Lawton, an older white ma, riding a horse through bushes and trees. He wears a military uniform. Other uniformed white men ride behind him.\" class=\"wp-image-25164\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7597765363128491;width:310px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-778x1024.jpg 778w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-768x1011.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-1167x1536.jpg 1167w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102.jpg 1384w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 778px) 100vw, 778px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AQXM?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Frederic Remington, &#8220;Major-General Henry W. Lawton, USV&#8221; in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook, 57 (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Another\u00a0possible starting point for our consideration of the history of the Philippine-American War might be to think about who was fighting in it \u2014 a question which leads us almost immediately to a group of officers who had significant experience in what the United States called the \u201cfrontier army,\u201d\u00a0the regiments stationed in Indigenous homelands that were taken (by force and other means) and transformed into the western portion of the United States.\u00a0Twenty-six of the thirty generals in the US Army during the Philippine-American War had also served in the frontier army in the US West (Capozzola, <em>Bound By\u00a0War,<\/em> 18). This significant overlap between the officers who served in campaigns against Indigenous nations in the late nineteenth century and those who served in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War reminds us that we should always\u00a0look\u00a0beyond the official boundaries of specific military actions. Army men bring the whole of their experiences to each deployment.\u00a0In the case of soldiers whose service stretched across the Pacific Ocean, not only did these men connect their service in the Philippines to their service in the US West; plenty of others did, too. A prime example is the military career of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/armyhistory.org\/major-general-henry-w-lawton-usa\/\">General Henry Ware Lawton<\/a>, whose service stretched from the US Civil War,\u00a0to the\u00a0Apache Wars and the campaign against Geronimo in the 1880s,\u00a0to leading troops in Cuba as part of the war with Spain, to dying in battle in the Philippines in 1899.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If Lawton was not already a household name, he became one in death&nbsp;as the highest-ranking American officer to die in the Philippine-American War.&nbsp;A scrapbook carefully assembled by family friend Robert Carter emphasizes not just the breadth of Lawton\u2019s career, but the amount of public attention he received over the course of&nbsp;decades-long military service.&nbsp;Not only do the headlines Carter saved describe a man who was seemingly larger&nbsp;than life; they also make narrative connections between his service in the West against Indigenous people and his service in the Philippines.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=82&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"456\" height=\"342\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Excerpt of a clipped newspaper article describing Lawton's military successes.\" class=\"wp-image-25166\" style=\"width:317px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082-edited.jpg 456w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082-edited-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 456px) 100vw, 456px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=82&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Lawton, Fighting Machine&#8221; excerpt in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook, 44 (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, Lawton served in the US Army in Apache homelands&nbsp;and played a crucial role in the eventual surrender and incarceration of Geronimo. And&nbsp;so,&nbsp;the fact that Lawton fell in battle against Filipino forces led by General Licerio Geronimo was a coincidence the press&nbsp;couldn\u2019t&nbsp;help but emphasize. It affirmed Lawton\u2019s embodiment of a \u201cfrontier\u201d sensibility.&nbsp;Newspaper and magazine coverage of his activities characterized him as both an \u201cIndian-fighter\u201d and a \u201cFighting Machine,\u201d as one headline read.&nbsp;An example like this&nbsp;speaks to a larger process we sometimes miss when we focus on a specific moment, battle, or war\u2014the cultural frame within which participants and observers&nbsp;make meaning out of&nbsp;a particular moment.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many soldiers who served on both sides of the Pacific, and many others who&nbsp;didn\u2019t&nbsp;but read about the work of the frontier army, wrote about their experiences in the Philippines by making connections between fighting Native people in the US West and fighting Filipinos in the Philippines.&nbsp;Robert Carter\u2019s Lawton scrapbook makes these kinds of connections&nbsp;visible&nbsp;and invites us to think beyond the battlefield. The scrapbook&nbsp;not only&nbsp;indicates&nbsp;how these moments were documented and remembered by people who experienced them&nbsp;and&nbsp;by people who read about them in&nbsp;letters and newspapers&nbsp;and magazines.&nbsp;It also shows&nbsp;how others&nbsp;added a layer of curation and interpretation to these materials by reworking them into a volume like this one.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Take a look&nbsp;at some of the pages<\/a>, and&nbsp;you\u2019ll&nbsp;notice that Carter made specific choices about what to include here\u2014much of it annotated in ways that reflect his own knowledge, as well as his&nbsp;proximity to the Lawton family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ask Students<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What have you learned, formally or informally, about the Philippines? What have you learned about the Philippine-American War? Reflect on why this might be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Think about the last historical moment that interested you: how might you begin telling someone else about it? What other possible starting points might there be, and how might they change your story?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Does Henry War Lawton&#8217;s life expand your image of American empire? How?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What do you observe about the Lawton scrapbook assembled by Robert Carter? What questions does this layered narrative of Lawton\u2019s career raise for you?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"cuba-philippines\">From Cuba to the Philippines<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand the origins of the Philippine-American War, we must look to the&nbsp;<em>USS Maine.&nbsp;<\/em>The&nbsp;destruction&nbsp;of this ship&nbsp;in Havana Harbor led to US intervention in the&nbsp;ongoing&nbsp;Cuban fight for liberation from Spain.&nbsp;In fighting&nbsp;the Spanish-American War (April-December 1898), the United States targeted sites of Spanish imperial power beyond Cuba.&nbsp;The defeat&nbsp;of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay by Commodore&nbsp;George&nbsp;Dewey (afterwards, Admiral Dewey) and the&nbsp;US&nbsp;Navy on May 1, 1898,&nbsp;not even a week after the formal declaration of war,&nbsp;dealt a decisive blow to Spain \u2014 militarily and politically. The United States&nbsp;also&nbsp;sent ground troops to Cuba, and after&nbsp;the&nbsp;battles we sometimes learn about at El Caney and San Juan Hill, the United States occupied Santiago.&nbsp;Negotiations between the United States and Spain began in Paris&nbsp;in October, and what was called \u201ca splendid little war\u201d by US Ambassador John Hay&nbsp;was formally concluded with the Treaty of Paris,&nbsp;which was&nbsp;signed in&nbsp;December 1898&nbsp;(Hoganson,&nbsp;<em>Fighting for American Manhood<\/em>, 6). But even as victory over Spain seemed certain, US military leaders did not have clarity about American visions for the Philippines.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is often where our textbooks&nbsp;stop,&nbsp;without any further attention to the terms of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the agreement marking the end of the Spanish-American War. But as part of the&nbsp;treaty, Spain agreed to sell Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States for twenty million dollars.&nbsp;This sale paved&nbsp;the way for the US military to shift from&nbsp;liberating&nbsp;the Philippines from Spain to replacing Spain as a colonizing force. Of this transition, historian David&nbsp;Silbey&nbsp;wrote, \u201cWhat the Filipinos had paid for in blood, the Americans had paid for with gold\u201d&nbsp;(<em>A War of Frontier and Empire,<\/em>&nbsp;4).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even this brief narration is flawed, however,&nbsp;because it positions Filipinos outside of the story of 1898. Filipino resistance to Spanish colonial rule has a long history, and in the years leading up to the Spanish-American War, Filipino elites&nbsp;organized&nbsp;a rebellion that became known as the Katipunan Revolution. Though not successful in the mid-1890s, these efforts were reactivated as Spain\u2019s hold weakened, and Filipino soldiers fought against the Spanish during the Spanish-American War.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were hopes that the United States would support Philippine independence.&nbsp;Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent of Spanish colonial rule in the middle of 1898, and work on a new government began. And while Spain and the United States were negotiating war\u2019s end in Paris (without including Felipe Agoncillo, who went to Paris to&nbsp;represent&nbsp;the interests of an independent Philippines), Filipino leaders were crafting their own founding document. This&nbsp;document \u201ccomprised the same fundamental&nbsp;principles on which that of the United States is based,\u201d wrote Agoncillo in a plea written directly <a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z8PH769E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cTo the American People.\u201d<\/a> The Philippine Republic was announced in early 1899, and Emilio Aguinaldo was named its first president. But the United States did not recognize an&nbsp;independent&nbsp;Philippine nation. Instead, when fighting broke out in Manila on February 4, 1899, each side said the other had started it.&nbsp;The United States ratified the Treaty of Paris and then went to war&nbsp;against&nbsp;Filipino forces.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=288&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"792\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_02-792x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white bust photograph of Henry Cabot Lodge, a white man with a short beard wearing a dark coat, white collared shirt, and tie.\" class=\"wp-image-25169\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7734282941706523;width:224px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_02-792x1024.jpg 792w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_02-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_02-768x993.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_02.jpg 826w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 792px) 100vw, 792px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=288&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Henry W. Lawton scrapbook, photo of Henry Cabot Lodge (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as war began, it was unclear exactly what the United States was fighting for.&nbsp;American public opinion was divided on the idea of American colonial control of the Philippines,&nbsp;and this was a key issue&nbsp;as&nbsp;the&nbsp;presidential election&nbsp;of 1900 approached. William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley were the candidates.&nbsp;Bryan was opposed to US colonialism in the Philippines, while McKinley&nbsp;came&nbsp;out in favor of it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Folded into that scrapbook celebrating the life and career of Henry Ware Lawton is an essay written by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, titled, \u201cShall We Retain the Philippines?\u201d Lodge was an outspoken proponent of US control of the Philippines.&nbsp;In this essay, published in&nbsp;<em>Collier\u2019s Weekly<\/em>&nbsp;on February 10, 1900,&nbsp;he&nbsp;argued that the United States had an obligation to&nbsp;retain&nbsp;control, no matter the desires of Filipinos. He wrote, \u201cUpon the point of taking the islands without the consent of the governed a word may be said. We have never&nbsp;asked&nbsp;the consent of any inhabitant of all the vast territory we have annexed, with the single exception of Hawaii. If we had wanted the consent of the Filipinos there&nbsp;was&nbsp;no means of getting it\u2026\u201d Lodge explains the duty, as he saw it, of the United States to establish&nbsp;a&nbsp;\u201cwise and beneficent government\u201d for Filipinos but does not shy away from naming the economic opportunities for the United States in the Pacific \u2014 new resources, new markets. And to those concerned about the implications of US imperialism in the Pacific, Lodge explicitly&nbsp;states, \u201cwe shall never make their people part of the citizenship of the United States.\u201d&nbsp;On the other side was Senator George F. Hoar, whom&nbsp;<em>Collier\u2019s&nbsp;<\/em>also asked to&nbsp;write&nbsp;an essay with that same title: \u201cShall We Retain the Philippines?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=288&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"554\" height=\"486\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Nine-tenths of the arguments against the retention of the Philippine Islands seem to consist of eloquent but inapplicable eulogies upon the Declaration of Independence, of which the opponents of the President's policy and the Republican party appear to consider themselves the sole owners and lovers, and of heated denunciations of the purpose and motives of all who differ from them. The other tenth of these arguments are based upon newspaper reports, upon the veracious declarations of Aguinaldo and his friends (interested witnesses, perhaps), upon the careless and utterly unauthorized utterances of one or two consuls, and upon certain sentences in official reports, torn from their context and twisted and tortured until, like the miserable victims of the rack or the book in medieval times, they have become so broken and feeble that they can be used as evidence for almost anything. Those, on the other hand, who favor the retention of the islands are most anxious that every particle of information received by the government should be published, and that the discussion of the question should be as full and thorough as possible; for they believe that the more facts are known, the more impregnable their position will appear to the American people, and the more thoroughly will every one be convinced of the wisdom and soundness of the President's policy.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03.jpg 554w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03-300x263.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 554px) 100vw, 554px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?BRPN=288&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Herny Cabot Lodge, &#8220;Shall We Retain the Philippines,&#8221; detail, in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook (undated<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hoar and Lodge, along&nbsp;with presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and President (and incumbent candidate) McKinley, shared their views in a wide range of forums. In one such piece, the views of President McKinley (for&nbsp;retaining&nbsp;the Philippines as an American colony) and Senator Hoar (against imperialism and for granting&nbsp;Philippine&nbsp;independence)&nbsp;were positioned side-by-side. McKinley and Hoar&nbsp;offer conflicting answers about&nbsp;promises made to Emilio Aguinaldo, as well as competing interpretations of the violence between US and Filipino soldiers in early 1899 that launched the Philippine-American War. Hoar writes, \u201cOur imperialistic friends seem to have forgotten the use of the vocabulary of liberty,\u201d and concludes by affirming, \u201cThere can be no good government but self-government.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSBRGT7P?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"588\" height=\"646\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002.jpg\" alt=\"Two columns of printed text, one arguing in favor of US control of the Philippines and one arguing for Philippine independence.\" class=\"wp-image-25188\" style=\"width:697px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002.jpg 588w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002-273x300.jpg 273w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSBRGT7P?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;McKinley vs. Hoar&#8221; <em>New York Evening Post<\/em> (Sep. 27, 1900)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is important to acknowledge that sometimes an anti-imperialist position was rooted in racism&nbsp;and&nbsp;deep opposition to the possibility of incorporating Filipino people (read: non-white people) into the broader American polity. Others,&nbsp;however, highlighted&nbsp;echoes they noticed between US imperialism in the Pacific and Jim Crow laws at home.&nbsp;And the positions of proponents or critics of imperialism were not always consistent; ideas about Hawai\u02bbi, for example, might not match ideas about the Philippines.&nbsp;Both sides claimed&nbsp;the moral&nbsp;high ground.&nbsp;While imperialists framed their vision as an enactment of a \u201ccivilizing mission,\u201d a commitment to \u201cuplifting\u201d and educating people they perceived to be inferior, anti-imperialists saw formal expansion into the Pacific as counter to the values underneath the American Revolution and the nation\u2019s own history of challenging British colonialism (often without critiquing the behavior of the United States in relation to Indigenous nations in North America).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While&nbsp;Senator&nbsp;Lodge and President McKinley advocated for American control of the Philippines in a range of forums, a group of US politicians, writers, and industrialists \u2014 among them Senator George F. Hoar,&nbsp;Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, and Eugene Debs \u2014 argued for granting the Philippines independence.&nbsp;This opposition to American empire in the Philippines organized under the heading of the Anti-Imperialist League, and at its height it counted 30,000 Americans as members&nbsp;(Brewer, 11).&nbsp;The Anti-Imperialist League employed many strategies for&nbsp;advocating for&nbsp;its positions \u2014 none more effective than brochures, pamphlets, and newspaper accounts. As the war stretched on, letters from US soldiers became an especially powerful tool of critique. A pamphlet published in 1899 included this quotation from a soldier from the First Nebraska Regiment: \u201cI am not afraid, and am always ready to do my duty, but I would like someone to tell me what we are fighting for\u201d&nbsp;(as quoted in Kohout,&nbsp;<em>Taking the Field<\/em>, 131).&nbsp;Cheryl&nbsp;Berudo&nbsp;argues that the print record assembled by the League is one&nbsp;of&nbsp;their most significant contributions.&nbsp;Though their position did not win out in the Philippines, their labor generated an \u201canti-imperialist archive\u201d&nbsp;(<em>Import of the Archive<\/em>,&nbsp;51-52).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should also notice how specific choices shaped narratives about the Philippine-American War. For example,&nbsp;while it was happening, the United States called this conflict the \u201cPhilippine Insurrection\u201d \u2014 a name that suggested that Filipinos were engaging in illegitimate rebellion, rather than fighting for the sovereignty of the Philippines. Today, we recognize this conflict as a war fought between an occupying imperial power (the United States), and Filipino forces imagining an independent and unified archipelago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ask Students<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>How did the end of the Spanish-American War&nbsp;impact&nbsp;the Philippines?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How would you characterize the different opinions about the United States\u2019s role in the Philippines&nbsp;that&nbsp;circulated in the US at the end of the nineteenth century?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What observations can you share about how this&nbsp;foreign policy&nbsp;debate&nbsp;played&nbsp;out at the turn of the twentieth century? What is&nbsp;similar&nbsp;to&nbsp;or different&nbsp;from&nbsp;the ways competing or dissenting opinions are communicated in our time?&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"war-on-ground\">The Philippine-American War on the Ground<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>How do historians access the lived experiences of soldiering \u2014 in this and other wars? We&nbsp;look&nbsp;to&nbsp;a wide range of materials: military records, newspapers and magazines, soldiers\u2019 official reports, as well as their diaries and letters home. US soldiers deployed to the Philippines&nbsp;generated a vast written record, and they commented on the people, culture, and landscapes they&nbsp;encountered&nbsp;as part of their Philippines&nbsp;service. They also shared their feelings about the war, and the emotions they&nbsp;felt&nbsp;being far away from loved ones. Sometimes what they wrote in their letters criticized US policy; in other moments, soldiers\u2019 letters revealed racist ideas about the people of the Philippines. Soldiers\u2019 ideas about their work\u2014 and the people they were tasked with fighting\u2014were not uniform.&nbsp;We need to grapple with all that soldiers wrote and said, as well as with what they did to&nbsp;suppress&nbsp;Filipino resistance and&nbsp;establish&nbsp;an American colonial government in the Philippines.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John T. McCutcheon was not a US soldier; he was a reporter and cartoonist for the&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;<em>Record<\/em>. In the spring of 1898, he happened to be in Hong Kong, at exactly the right place and time to embed himself with Commodore&nbsp;George&nbsp;Dewey as he was sailing to take on the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. This&nbsp;gave him&nbsp;a series of opportunities to do firsthand reporting on the Spanish-American War and then the Philippine-American War. McCutcheon\u2019s reporting in the&nbsp;<em>Record&nbsp;<\/em>was how many Americans received their news about the war.&nbsp;But as historians with access to John McCutcheon\u2019s papers, we can look both at his published work and at the notes he kept in tiny reporter\u2019s&nbsp;notebooks over the course of his career.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893S7WF?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"318\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1024x318.jpg\" alt=\"Pencil-drawn image in a small notebook of a bay surrounded by mountains. At least six ships burn in the bay.\" class=\"wp-image-24709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1024x318.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-300x93.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-768x239.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1536x477.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-2048x636.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893S7WF?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John T. McCutcheon, &#8220;Burning the Spanish Ships &#8211; 11:00 AM, May 1&#8221; (1898)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of the notebooks in the Newberry Library\u2019s collection of McCutcheon\u2019s papers are small \u2014 the kind that would fit in a chest pocket. Reading the words McCutcheon scribbled on some of these pages requires a magnifying glass!&nbsp;As both artist and reporter, McCutcheon did more than scribble down his observations; sometimes he made sketches. Across&nbsp;the&nbsp;notebooks&nbsp;he&nbsp;kept&nbsp;while in the Philippines, there are pages containing drawings of the coastline of Luzon, as seen from his vantage point on a US warship; the positions of Spanish ships while they burn in Manila Bay; and sketches of key environmental features, like Mayon, the volcano that towered over the port city of Legazpi.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1559\" height=\"2337\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Small lined journal with handwritten text in blue pencil. On the right-hand page are two hand-drawn illustrations. At the top is Mayon volcano viewed from the sea. Below is the entrance to Sorsogon Bay.\" class=\"wp-image-25191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited.jpg 1559w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-768x1151.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-1366x2048.jpg 1366w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1559px) 100vw, 1559px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John T. McCutcheon, diary entry for Jan. 21, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=4&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1537\" height=\"2306\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Two-page spread of a small, lined notebook with handwritten text and drawings in blue pencil. The left-hand page is full of text, and the right-hand page has a drawing of Mayon volcano viewed from the sea.\" class=\"wp-image-25190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited.jpg 1537w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-1365x2048.jpg 1365w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1537px) 100vw, 1537px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=4&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John T. McCutcheon, diary entry for Jan. 21, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>McCutcheon\u2019s tiny notebooks help us see what McCutcheon&nbsp;noticed&nbsp;while he was embedded with US soldiers across the Philippines.&nbsp;His&nbsp;is an \u201con-the-ground\u201d perspective.&nbsp;Perhaps because&nbsp;he&nbsp;traveled with&nbsp;US soldiers, he&nbsp;paid&nbsp;close attention to the distances covered by regiments once they left Manila,&nbsp;emphasizing&nbsp;the strenuous work of moving through unfamiliar landscapes. In a piece for the&nbsp;<em>Record<\/em>, McCutcheon took his time describing how difficult the terrain was, including a path \u201cthrough a range&nbsp;of mountains, winding up and down, in some places almost impassable and in all places very hard, even on troops which had been hardened by fourteen days of constant hiking\u201d&nbsp;(McCutcheon, Chicago<em>&nbsp;Record<\/em>\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Stories of Filipino Warfare<\/em>, 40-41). \u201cHiking,\u201d for US soldiers in the Philippines, came to mean far more than strenuous movement through tough terrain. Soldiers used this word, often keeping it in quotation marks in their diaries and letters home, to mean a wide range&nbsp;of&nbsp;both physical and military activities: summiting mountains, crossing rivers, burning farms and fields, confiscating cached weapons, and&nbsp;interrogating&nbsp;Filipinos suspected of being what the US army&nbsp;called \u201cinsurrectos\u201d (Kohout<em>,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Taking the Field<\/em>,<em>&nbsp;<\/em>144-154).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US Army employed the tactics of \u201ctotal war\u201d in the Philippines: they utilized a reconcentration policy to relocate civilians, depriving them of their belongings and their livelihoods; they overlooked the sometimes hard-to-find boundary between soldier and noncombatant, and regularly used torture, such as the \u201cwater cure\u201d to extract information and inflict pain. Sometimes they killed prisoners, and in an example that made headlines in many American newspapers, they followed orders to make Samar a \u201chowling wilderness\u201d \u2013 by killing anyone \u201ccapable of bearing arms\u201d (Kramer,&nbsp;<em>The Blood of Government<\/em>, 152-154, 144-145; Kohout,&nbsp;<em>Taking the Field<\/em>, 162-166).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edward Seymour Walton served in the US Army from 1894&nbsp;to&nbsp;1926, with service in the Philippine-American War, the 1916 Punitive Expedition into Mexico, and in World War I. He retired at the rank of colonel. While in the Philippines, Lieutenant Walton wrote detailed letters home to his sister describing the challenges of his assignment. On March 18, 1900, from Panay, he wrote, \u201cWe \u2018hiked\u2019 up and down steep hills for an hour without finding the place and then had to sit down by the side of a little stream to rest as several of the men had fainted from the exertion and great heat.\u201d Later in the letter, he describes a gunfight with&nbsp;\u201cinsurgents,\u201d&nbsp;and writes, \u201cIt is very hard to go after these people because they are thoroughly at home in the mountains and know every little ravine and all the short cuts\u2026White men cannot stand that sort of work now that it is getting so hot and the only way that we can get at them will be to take a couple of companies and live in the mountains for several days at a time and gradually drive them into a corner somewhere.\u201d&nbsp;Here we see Walton mobilizing racist ideas rooted in pseudoscience about the relationship between whiteness and suitability for tropical climates.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z890FZ_J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"577\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;It is very hard to go after these people because they are thoroughly at home in the mountains and know every little ravine and all the short cuts. This place where we were fighting them was a sort of ravine down which the river ran and you could look way back into the high mountains and see nothing but a series of peaks getting higher and higher the further back you looked, these peaks have very steep sides and as a general thing are not connected by any sort of a ridge so that in order to get at the Kackies it was necessary to climb one peak after another, one squad covering the advance of another all the way. White men cannot stand that sort of work now that it is getting so hot and the only way that we can get at them will be to take a couple off companies and live in the mountains for several days at a time and gradually drive them into a corner somewhere.\" class=\"wp-image-25192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-1024x577.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-768x433.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_006-2048x1154.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z890FZ_J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Edward Seymour Walton to his sister, March 18, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact,&nbsp;many soldiers on both sides of the&nbsp;Philippine-American&nbsp;War&nbsp;deployed&nbsp;ideas about race. Black soldiers serving in the US Army were not all of the same mind about the war in the Philippines: some saw their service as an opportunity to demonstrate their excellence to those depending on them back home, while others&nbsp;(including, it seems, David Fagen, of the 24<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;Infantry, who deserted to join the Philippine Revolutionary Army)&nbsp;recognized the ways in which racism and imperialism were tangled together. And&nbsp;Filipino&nbsp;soldiers&nbsp;sought&nbsp;to capitalize on this with a pamphlet they circulated to Black soldiers in the US Army called \u201cTo the Colored American Soldier,\u201d which pointed out American hypocrisy. The pamphlet named the 1899 lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia&nbsp;and asked Black soldiers to \u201cconsider your situation and your history\u201d (Gatewood,&nbsp;<em>Smoked Yankees<\/em>,&nbsp;258-259).&nbsp;One Black soldier who wrote home to his local newspaper&nbsp;used these words to&nbsp;describe&nbsp;what he had seen:&nbsp;\u201cExpansion is too clean a name for it\u201d (Gatewood,&nbsp;<em>Smoked Yankees<\/em>, 279-81).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ask Students<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What is the difference between calling something&nbsp;a \u201cwar\u201d versus an \u201cinsurrection\u201d?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What do we know about the on-the-ground realities of the Philippine-American War? How do we know these things?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What do you notice in <a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z890FZ_J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">E.S. Walton\u2019s letter<\/a>? What&nbsp;does it tell you&nbsp;about the sources historians use to understand war?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"colonial-rule\">US Colonial Rule and Ongoing Military Violence<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>President Theodore Roosevelt declared the Philippine-American War over in July&nbsp;of&nbsp;1902, and the United States shifted control of most of the Philippines from military leadership to an American civilian colonial government.&nbsp;Early in this colonial project, the United States dispatched two separate Philippine Commissions\u2014comprising&nbsp;of&nbsp;elite men&nbsp;representing&nbsp;American interests\u2014to gather information about the Philippines and make recommendations about the archipelago\u2019s governance and management. The first, led by Jacob Schurman (President of Cornell University) had both civilian and military members:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/archives.newberry.org\/repositories\/2\/resources\/1309\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dean Worcester<\/a>&nbsp;(a zoologist who had previously visited the Philippines as part of a scientific expedition), Charles Denby (Civil War veteran who had served as the US Minister to China), Admiral George Dewey (who led the US to victory over the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay), and General Elwell Otis (military governor of the Philippines). The Schurman Commission (1899) recommended a structure for an American colonial government. While they noted the ongoing struggle for Philippine independence (first against Spain, now against the United States), they concluded&nbsp;in&nbsp;exceedingly paternalistic language&nbsp;that Filipinos were not ready to govern themselves.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second, or Taft,&nbsp;Commission (1900) was charged with legislative authority by US President McKinley, and its members implemented a civilian government&nbsp;that included a bicameral legislature, with one half popularly elected and the other half comprising of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Philippine Commission&nbsp;(now&nbsp;a body with shifting membership), and William Howard Taft as Governor-General of the Philippines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This&nbsp;government&nbsp;was&nbsp;created&nbsp;through&nbsp;two US laws:&nbsp;the&nbsp;1901 Spooner Amendment&nbsp;and the 1902 Philippine Organic Act. The Spooner Amendment&nbsp;gave the US President civilian authority to govern the Philippines (rather than relying on the president\u2019s wartime military authority).&nbsp;The&nbsp;1902 Philippine Organic Act&nbsp;followed the Spooner Amendment and outlined the structure for the US colonial government in the Philippines.&nbsp;These laws, combined with&nbsp;a set of US&nbsp;Supreme Court decisions&nbsp;on what became known as the&nbsp;Insular Cases&nbsp;(1901-1905),&nbsp;reframed&nbsp;the reach and the limits of the US Constitution and broadly affirmed US imperialism.&nbsp;For example, the decisions in these cases articulated a distinction between incorporated US territory (territories on the path to statehood, meaning citizenship and full constitutional rights) and unincorporated US territory (areas&nbsp;not intended for statehood, where people would not receive full constitutional rights \u2013 only those deemed \u201cfundamental\u201d) Thus, the Insular Cases \u201cconstitutionally justified imperialist policy\u201d (Gelp\u00ed, 22-23).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bureau of Insular Affairs was&nbsp;also&nbsp;established&nbsp;in 1902&nbsp;inside the US Department of War, elevating a smaller office that had been created in 1898 to manage US overseas territory. In the 1930s,&nbsp;the Bureau of Insular Affairs&nbsp;moved to the Department of the Interior. In thinking about the long history of United States imperialism, we might reflect on the resonances between the&nbsp;dispossession of Indigenous people in the US West and their incarceration on reservations\u2014a system managed first by the Department of War, and later by the Department of Interior\u2014and the governing structures established to manage&nbsp;US&nbsp;colonial possessions like the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and&nbsp;Guam.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first decade of the twentieth century, the American civilian colonial government in the Philippines generated an impressive amount of legislation and bureaucracy. Examining the&nbsp;table of contents from the&nbsp;1913-1914 legislative sessions&nbsp;reveals the&nbsp;scope&nbsp;of this colonial government, which made decisions on everything from pest management to false advertising,&nbsp;taxation, cattle branding, and the reorganization and renaming of various government departments and positions. But&nbsp;even as colonial infrastructure ballooned outward from Manila,&nbsp;Mindanao remained&nbsp;under military authority.&nbsp;It was the site of continued fighting between US military forces and local communities for another decade. The&nbsp;Spanish labeled the&nbsp;people of Mindanao \u201cMoros\u201d \u2014a name that reflects a colonial category imposed from&nbsp;the outside.&nbsp;What&nbsp;the United States called \u201cMoroland\u201d was home to many&nbsp;different groups&nbsp;who managed to mostly be left alone under Spanish colonialism, and who strongly resisted American military control.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z898DLAB?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1900\" height=\"1901\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Table of contents from a printed book listing laws in the US-administered Philippines.\" class=\"wp-image-25195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited.jpg 1900w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-1536x1536.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z898DLAB?WS=AssetManagement\">Laws of the Philippine Islands, Contents, vii (1914)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>US military action in the southern part of the Philippines was&nbsp;marked by a brutal series of&nbsp;punitive expeditions and the 1906 Bud&nbsp;Dajo&nbsp;Massacre,&nbsp;in which&nbsp;the US Army slaughtered hundreds of&nbsp;Taos\u016bgs&nbsp;who had taken refuge inside the crater of an extinct volcano on the island of Jolo. A photograph of US soldiers posing with dead Filipinos in the crater circulated widely in its time&nbsp;and reflected&nbsp;the brutality the Philippine-American War had become known for.&nbsp;US&nbsp;forces carried out&nbsp;another massacre at Bud&nbsp;Bagsak&nbsp;in 1913. Though increasingly infrequent, skirmishes occurred&nbsp;until&nbsp;Philippine independence in 1946.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve&nbsp;covered almost half of century of the history of US colonialism in the Philippines in this section\u2014from the official end of the Philippine-American War and the creation of a civilian colonial government to the ways that US military violence&nbsp;tried to end Filipino resistance in Mindanao long after 1902. It is important to understand what happened in this tumultuous period,&nbsp;but sometimes a focus on those exercising power&nbsp;and enacting violence&nbsp;means we miss what it was like for Filipinos to experience this war and its outcomes.&nbsp;Historian Christopher Capozzola writes, \u201cHistorians will never agree on the number of the dead, but they all acknowledge the devastation\u201d (<em>Bound&nbsp;By&nbsp;War<\/em>, 64). And then he offers some estimates: 4200 US soldiers killed;&nbsp;between 15,000 and 20,000 Filipino soldiers&nbsp;killed;&nbsp;and between 100,000 and 300,000&nbsp;Filipino&nbsp;civilians killed&nbsp;or dead as result of the tactics of total war.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ask Students<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What did the Philippine Commissions under Schurman (1899)&nbsp;and Taft (1900) do?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When did the Philippine-American War end, officially and in reality? Describe what&nbsp;happened&nbsp;in Mindanao during the first decade of the twentieth century.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Brainstorm a list of the kinds of sources you would look for to understand the Philippine-American War and the civilian colonial government in the Philippines. What materials do you think are easy to find? Which perspectives might be more challenging to&nbsp;locate?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"culture-of-empire\">Visual and Material Culture of Empire<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Recrossing the Pacific and traveling, in our mind\u2019s eye, to the 1904 St. Louis World\u2019s Fair, might seem a strange way to conclude an overview of the Philippine-American War. But world\u2019s fairs were major sites of storytelling about the&nbsp;United States&nbsp;and its relationship to the wider world&nbsp;in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the 1904 St. Louis World\u2019s Fair is no exception. While&nbsp;historians usually turn to&nbsp;the Chicago World\u2019s Fair (1893) and its White City (designed by Daniel Burnham, the same architect responsible for an American colonial&nbsp;retreat&nbsp;in&nbsp;Baguio&nbsp;in the Philippines)&nbsp;to make arguments about visual culture and national narratives, the 1904 St. Louis World\u2019s Fair, with its&nbsp;forty-seven-acre Philippine Exposition, offers us an opportunity to think about how&nbsp;both fairgoers and workers treated&nbsp;like&nbsp;exhibits&nbsp;understood US empire.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWWWWW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"693\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1024x693.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo postcard showing a temple-front at the entrance next to a river with a bridge.\" class=\"wp-image-24387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1024x693.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-768x520.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1536x1039.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWWWWW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Photograph Co., &#8220;Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, The Walled City of Manila&#8221; (1904)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In St. Louis, many aspects of American imperialism were displayed and consumed, including ideas about racial&nbsp;hierarchy&nbsp;that placed white European societies at the top \u2013 and non-white people at the bottom. The layout of the fair&nbsp;made arguments, too: by positioning Indigenous people from North America on one side of \u201cArrowhead Lake\u201d and Filipino people from all over the archipelago on the other, fairgoers&nbsp;crossed from encountering&nbsp;Native people from the West&nbsp;to&nbsp;observing&nbsp;Filipinos&nbsp;also&nbsp;navigating life&nbsp;under American colonialism.&nbsp;Many different exhibits at the fair added up to an overarching&nbsp;story&nbsp;about US colonialism as a vehicle for \u201cProgress\u201d and societal development.&nbsp;These exhibits&nbsp;emphasized that Filipinos had the potential for the American vision of civilization by&nbsp;displaying&nbsp;Filipino&nbsp;schoolchildren learning from American teachers&nbsp;and&nbsp;Filipino Scouts led by US officers,&nbsp;but they also drew attention to what they framed as primitive behavior, such as dog-eating or headhunting,&nbsp;to&nbsp;justify the ongoing occupation and&nbsp;American&nbsp;colonial government&nbsp;in the Philippines.&nbsp;These examples were used as evidence for the imagined superiority of colonial powers and the benefits that US or western civilization&nbsp;supposedly brought&nbsp;to the colonized.&nbsp;We see these&nbsp;ideas&nbsp;over and over again&nbsp;in the essays, newspaper articles, and political cartoons of this period\u2014and in coverage of the fair, specifically.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&nbsp;should&nbsp;also ask questions about the Filipino people who traveled to St. Louis to participate&nbsp;in the fair. Despite their presence in a vast visual archive, of which these postcards at the Newberry Library are&nbsp;part, we know far less about the lives and choices of these people \u2013 who had their own reasons for making&nbsp;the long trip across the Pacific. Once in St. Louis, they were tasked with constructing their homes in a traditional style, and living on the fairgrounds, where, for several hours each day, they were on display as the main draw of the Philippine Exposition.&nbsp;What&nbsp;historians&nbsp;know about their lives&nbsp;comes&nbsp;mostly from an archival record generated by fair planners and fairgoers \u2013 like&nbsp;this postcard featuring&nbsp;Igorot&nbsp;weavers. Why did these women&nbsp;come to the fair? What was their journey like? What did they think about the people who came daily to look at them? Where did they go after the exposition ended? Did they stay on the fair circuit, or return to the Philippines?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWSZKP?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1024x680.jpg\" alt=\"Postcard with black-and-white photo showing five Cordilleran Indigenous women sitting on the ground of a porch. Two weave cloth on backstrap looms and another has a small fiber craft in her hands.\" class=\"wp-image-24386\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.505907771251097;width:404px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1536x1021.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWSZKP?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Igorots Weaving Cloth&#8221; (1904)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>These questions mattered in 1904, and they continue to matter today.&nbsp;As part of efforts to remember the&nbsp;1200 Filipino people&nbsp;brought to St. Louis&nbsp;(including seventeen people who died during the fair), local&nbsp;artist&nbsp;Janna A\u00f1onuevo Langholz&nbsp;spent years advocating for a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jannalangholz.com\/philippine-village-historical-site\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Philippine Village Historical Site&nbsp;marker<\/a>, which was installed in March 2025. Langholz has researched the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jannalangholz.com\/1200-lives-and-deaths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lives and stories of many of the people who participated in the Philippine Exposition<\/a>&nbsp;as part of efforts bring attention to&nbsp;these more unsettling aspects of&nbsp;the&nbsp;exposition\u2019s&nbsp;history alongside stories of the invention of the ice cream cone and the beauty of Forest Park, today a beloved city green space at the very center of St. Louis. Studying the Philippine-American War also means grappling with ideas about colonialism and white supremacy \u2013 ideas that were foundational to the war\u2019s beginning, but also to its legacies, which extend far beyond where this war was fought.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br>Ask Students<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What connections can you&nbsp;identify&nbsp;between the 1904 St. Louis World\u2019s Fair and the Philippine-American War?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Why might ideas about US empire in the Philippines be important for scholars to study?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Look at these souvenir postcards from the 1904 St. Louis World\u2019s Fair. What do you notice? What questions do these postcards raise for you?&nbsp;What can we learn from looking at the visual and material culture of&nbsp;empire\u2014at&nbsp;world\u2019s&nbsp;fairs and beyond?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"philippines-author\">About the Author<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Amy Kohout is Associate Professor of History at Colorado College. She works on US cultural and environmental history, and her research and teaching interests include the US West, American empire, museum studies, the history of natural history, and world\u2019s fairs. She earned her BA. in history from Yale University, and her MA and PhD in history from Cornell University. Amy\u2019s first book, <em>Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers <\/em>(Nebraska, 2023) received two awards from the Western History Association in 2024: the Hal K. Rothman Book Prize, awarded annually for the best book in western environmental history, and the Robert M. Utley Book Prize, awarded annually for the best book on the military history of the frontier and western North America. In 2020-21, she held the David J. Weber Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, and she was a 2022-2024 fellow of the Bright Institute at Knox College. Her work has been published in <em>Museum History<\/em>, <em>Rethinking History<\/em>, <em>Sustainability Science<\/em>, <em>The Appendix<\/em>, and <em>A Companion to the History of American Science<\/em>. Amy has worked on public-facing, collaborative projects centering historical research and writing; she was a co-founder of <em>Backlist<\/em>, a digital site where historians recommend books they love, and before that she served as an editor at <em>The Appendix<\/em>, a journal of narrative and experimental history.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Source Set<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contextualizing 1898<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The sources in this section show connections between the Philippine-American war and broader US imperial action. Many of the US officers in the war, like Major-General Henry W. Lawton, had previously fought Indigenous nations in what is now the Western United States. They brought that experience to the Philippines. So did US politicians, like those quoted in the excerpts below, who made points about liberty and supposed racial superiority to argue for and against US control of the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"729\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-729x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white map of the Philippines folded out from a printed book.\" class=\"wp-image-24708\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-729x1024.jpg 729w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-768x1079.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-1094x1536.jpg 1094w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-1458x2048.jpg 1458w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997830518805867_ord_g_6811_98_map_01-scaled.jpg 1823w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 729px) 100vw, 729px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SK1J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dean Worcester, <em>The Philippine Islands<\/em> (1899)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AQXM?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"778\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-778x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Full-page black-and-white illustration of Lawton, an older white ma, riding a horse through bushes and trees. He wears a military uniform. Other uniformed white men ride behind him.\" class=\"wp-image-25164\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-778x1024.jpg 778w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-768x1011.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102-1167x1536.jpg 1167w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0102.jpg 1384w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 778px) 100vw, 778px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AQXM?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Frederic Remington, &#8220;Major-General Henry W. Lawton, USV&#8221; in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook, 57 (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AM3S?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"456\" height=\"1197\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082.jpg\" alt=\"Excerpt of a clipped newspaper article describing Lawton's military successes.\" class=\"wp-image-25165\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082.jpg 456w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082-114x300.jpg 114w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0082-390x1024.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 456px) 100vw, 456px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZU6AM3S?WS=AssetManagement\">&#8220;Lawton, Fighting Machine&#8221; excerpt in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook, 44 (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"554\" height=\"486\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Nine-tenths of the arguments against the retention of the Philippine Islands seem to consist of eloquent but inapplicable eulogies upon the Declaration of Independence, of which the opponents of the President's policy and the Republican party appear to consider themselves the sole owners and lovers, and of heated denunciations of the purpose and motives of all who differ from them. The other tenth of these arguments are based upon newspaper reports, upon the veracious declarations of Aguinaldo and his friends (interested witnesses, perhaps), upon the careless and utterly unauthorized utterances of one or two consuls, and upon certain sentences in official reports, torn from their context and twisted and tortured until, like the miserable victims of the rack or the book in medieval times, they have become so broken and feeble that they can be used as evidence for almost anything. Those, on the other hand, who favor the retention of the islands are most anxious that every particle of information received by the government should be published, and that the discussion of the question should be as full and thorough as possible; for they believe that the more facts are known, the more impregnable their position will appear to the American people, and the more thoroughly will every one be convinced of the wisdom and soundness of the President's policy.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03.jpg 554w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/991546698805867_graff_2420_0288_03-300x263.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 554px) 100vw, 554px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZPDC3KX?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Herny Cabot Lodge, &#8220;Shall We Retain the Philippines,&#8221; detail, in the Henry Ware Lawton scrapbook (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"588\" height=\"646\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002.jpg\" alt=\"Two columns of printed text, one arguing in favor of US control of the Philippines and one arguing for Philippine independence.\" class=\"wp-image-25188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002.jpg 588w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996322758805867_ayer_broadside_2114_m15_1900_002-273x300.jpg 273w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSBRGT7P?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;McKinley vs. Hoar&#8221; <em>New York Evening Post <\/em>(Sep. 27, 1900)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Philippine-American War on the Ground<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary sources by soldiers and civilians help us understand how they experienced and documented a war. The sources here by journalist John T. McCutcheon and soldier Edward Seymour Walton illustrate and describe how they experienced battles, the environment, and the tactics of &#8220;total war.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893S7WF?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"318\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1024x318.jpg\" alt=\"Pencil-drawn image in a small notebook of a bay surrounded by mountains. At least six ships burn in the bay.\" class=\"wp-image-24709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1024x318.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-300x93.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-768x239.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-1536x477.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00033_fl_00869_may_01_1898_01-2048x636.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893S7WF?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\">John T. McCutcheon, &#8220;Burning the Spanish Ships &#8211; 11:00 AM, May 1&#8221; (1898)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Small lined journal with handwritten text in blue pencil. On the right-hand page are two hand-drawn illustrations. At the top is Mayon volcano viewed from the sea. Below is the entrance to Sorsogon Bay.\" class=\"wp-image-25191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-768x1151.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_01-1-edited.jpg 1559w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=2&amp;WS=AssetManagement\">John T. McCutcheon, diary entry for Jan. 21, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=4&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Two-page spread of a small, lined notebook with handwritten text and drawings in blue pencil. The left-hand page is full of text, and the right-hand page has a drawing of Mayon volcano viewed from the sea.\" class=\"wp-image-25190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited.jpg 1537w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z893SBIY?BRPN=4&amp;WS=AssetManagement\">John T. McCutcheon, diary entry for Jan. 21, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z890FZ_J?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"791\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-791x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Page of typewritten transcription of a letter from a solider in the Philippines to his sister describing the experience of moving around the islands in the army.\" class=\"wp-image-24714\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-768x995.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-1186x1536.jpg 1186w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-1581x2048.jpg 1581w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/997641428805867_ord_case_ms_e5_w175_march_18_1900_001-scaled.jpg 1976w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z890FZ_J?WS=AssetManagement\">Edward Seymour Walton to his sister, March 18, 1900<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Imperial Control and International Legacies <\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>These sources provide examples of ways that the US exerted control over the Philippines. The first source shows just a few of the many laws US leadership passed to build a colonial administration. The postcards depict Philippine exhibits at the 1904 St. Louis World&#8217;s Fair. Legacies of the fair continue today, through the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jannalangholz.com\/1200-lives-and-deaths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> lives, stories, and descendants of the 1,200 Filipinos who came to St. Louis<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z898DLAB?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Table of contents from a printed book listing laws in the US-administered Philippines.\" class=\"wp-image-25195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/996311188805867_ord_govt_6588_tbc_01-edited.jpg 1900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z898DLAB?WS=AssetManagement\"><em>Laws of the Philippine Islands<\/em>, Contents, vii (1914)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1024x680.jpg\" alt=\"Postcard with black-and-white photo showing five Cordilleran Indigenous women sitting on the ground of a porch. Two weave cloth on backstrap looms and another has a small fiber craft in her hands.\" class=\"wp-image-24386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001-1536x1021.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000078_00001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWSZKP?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Igorots Weaving Cloth&#8221; (1904)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"693\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1024x693.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo postcard showing a temple-front at the entrance next to a river with a bridge.\" class=\"wp-image-24387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1024x693.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-768x520.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001-1536x1039.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9911519380305867_JME_vol_00006_no_000038_00001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSPWWWWW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Photograph Co., &#8220;Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, The Walled City of Manila&#8221; (1904)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Further Reading<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">General Reading<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Capozzola, Christopher.&nbsp;<em>Bound by War: How the United States and the Philippines Built America\u2019s First Pacific Century<\/em>. New York: Basic Books, 2020.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>De Leon, Adrian.&nbsp;<em>Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America<\/em>. University of North Carolina Press. 2023.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Francia,&nbsp;Luis.&nbsp;<em>History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos<\/em>. Abrams Press, 2013.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hoganson,&nbsp;Kristin.&nbsp;<em>Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars<\/em>. Yale University Press. 2000).&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kohout, Amy.&nbsp;<em>Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers<\/em>. University of Nebraska Press, 2023.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kramer, Paul A.&nbsp;<em>The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines<\/em>. University of North Carolina Press, 2006.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Linn,&nbsp;Brian.&nbsp;<em>The Philippine War, 1899-1902<\/em>, University Press of Kansas, 2000.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Silbey, David.&nbsp;<em>A War of Frontier and Empire: The<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Philippine-American War, 1899-1902<\/em>. Macmillan Publishers, 2008.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">For more on Filipino resistance to Spanish colonialism before the Spanish-American War<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Francia, <em>History of the Philippines<\/em>. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reynaldo Ileto,<em> Filipinos and Their Revolution: Event, Discourse, and Historiography<\/em> (University of Hawaii Press, 1999).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>For more on the connections between US military action in western North America and the Pacific<\/strong>, in addition to the Kohout book listed above, see Katharine Bjork, <em>Prairie Imperialists: The Indian Country Origins of American Empire<\/em> (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">On Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>For an excellent discussion of the politics of imperialism and anti-imperialism<\/strong>, see Susan Brewer, <a href=\"https:\/\/apjjf.org\/2013\/11\/40\/susan-a-brewer\/4002\/article\">\u201cSelling Empire: American Propaganda and War in the Philippines,\u201d&nbsp;<\/a><em>The Asia-Pacific Journal<\/em>, Vol. 11 Issue 40, No. 1.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>On the texture of anti-imperialism<\/strong>\u2014both how some advocates rooted their opposition to imperialism in racism, and the ways that other critics of empire noticed continuities between the treatment of non-white people in the Philippines by the United States and the treatment of Black Americans at home, see Paul A. Kramer,&nbsp;<em>The Blood of Government<\/em>, pp.114-121&nbsp;and&nbsp;Matthew Frye Jacobson,<em>&nbsp;Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917&nbsp;<\/em>(Macmillan Publishers, 2001).&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional Published&nbsp;Primary Sources on the War<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Willard B. Gatewood Jr.,&nbsp;<em>Smoked&nbsp;Yankees&nbsp;and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers, 1898-1902<\/em>, (University of Arkansas Press,&nbsp;1987).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>John McCutcheon,&nbsp;<em>Chicago&nbsp;<\/em>Record\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Stories of Filipino Warfare&nbsp;<\/em>(Chicago, 1900).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Anti-Imperialist League,&nbsp;<em>Soldiers\u2019 Letters: Being Materials for the History of a War of Criminal Aggression<\/em>&nbsp;(Boston: Rockwell and Church Press, 1899).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">US&nbsp;Colonialism&nbsp;and Ongoing Military Violence&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>For an overview of the Insular Cases,<\/strong> see Hon. Gustavo A. Gelp\u00ed, \u201cThe Insular Cases: A Comparative History of Historical Study of Puerto Rico,&nbsp;Hawai\u2018i, and the Philippines,\u201d&nbsp;<em>The Federal Lawyer<\/em>, March\/April 2011, pp.22-25.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>For a history of US military and colonial occupation of the southern Philippines,<\/strong> see Oliver Charbonneau,&nbsp;<em>Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World<\/em>, (Cornell University Press, 2020), especially Chapter 4. Charbonneau offers a thoughtful reading of the Bud&nbsp;Dajo&nbsp;Massacre photograph, which depicts US soldiers posing with the dead, on&nbsp;pp.106-108.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>For more on the US colonial government in the Philippines<\/strong>, in addition to Kramer and de Leon, listed above, see&nbsp;Rebecca Tinio McKenna,&nbsp;<em>American Imperial Pastoral: The Architecture of US Colonialism in the Philippines<\/em>&nbsp;(University of Chicago Press, 2017) and&nbsp;Kathleen Gutierrez,&nbsp;<em>Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular Knowledge in the Colonial Philippines<\/em>&nbsp;(Duke University Press,&nbsp;2025).&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>For more on the creation of a colonial archive in the Philippines<\/strong>, see Cheryl&nbsp;Berudo,&nbsp;<em>Import of the Archive: U.S. Colonial Rule of the Philippines and the Making of American Archival History<\/em>&nbsp;(Litwin Books, 2013), 52, 51.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Visual and Material Culture of Empire&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Kramer, <em>The Blood of Government<\/em>,&nbsp;Chapter 4.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kohout<em>, Taking the Field<\/em>,&nbsp;Chapter 5.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nancy&nbsp;Parezo&nbsp;and Don Fowler,&nbsp;<em>Anthropology Goes to the Fair<\/em>:&nbsp;<em>The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition<\/em>&nbsp;(University of Nebraska Press, 2007).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Robert Rydell,&nbsp;<em>All the World\u2019s A Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916<\/em>&nbsp;(University of Chicago Press, 1985).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bonnie M. Miller,&nbsp;<em>From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of The Spanish-American War of 1898<\/em>&nbsp;(University of Massachusetts Press, 2011).&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Related Resources<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Related Newberry Resources<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=22658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"439\" height=\"559\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/USImperialism_Thumbnail.png\" alt=\"Thumbnail of lesson &quot;US Imperialism in the Philippines&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-23448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/USImperialism_Thumbnail.png 439w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/USImperialism_Thumbnail-236x300.png 236w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 439px) 100vw, 439px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=22658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Lesson: US Imperialism in the Philippines <\/strong><br>by Janice Lobo Sapigao<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=22659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"594\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PhilippineWar_Thumbnail.png\" alt=\"Thumbnail of lesson &quot;Causes and Impacts of the United States' War with the Philippines&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-23447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PhilippineWar_Thumbnail.png 443w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PhilippineWar_Thumbnail-224x300.png 224w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=22659\"><strong>Lesson: Causes and Impacts of the United States&#8217; War with the Philippines <\/strong><\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=22659\">by Janice Lobo Sapigao<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"563\" height=\"582\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Capture.png\" alt=\"Thumbnail image for the collection essay &quot;New Lessons for a New Empire&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Capture.png 563w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Capture-290x300.png 290w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 563px) 100vw, 563px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=24684\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Collection Essay: New Lessons for a New Empire<\/strong><br>by Dr. Nicholas Kryczka<strong> <\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[83,84,164],"tags":[165,166],"class_list":["post-25158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-19th-century","category-20th-century","category-collection-essays","tag-us-history","tag-world-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/997776998805867_ord_midwest_ms_mc_cutcheon_box_00034_fl_00872_jan_021_1900_03-edited.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25158"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25266,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25158\/revisions\/25266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}