"Boer War and Philippine-American War" Topic

The Boer War and the Philippine-American War were fought at almost exactly the same time (1899-1902) and both ended up in fairly unpleasant guerrilla warfare, with the 'Imperial' troops being forced to adopt some drastic and harsh tactics to secure victory.

The 'heavy-handedness' and 'methods of barbarism' employed by Kitchener's troops in South Africa are common knowledge (even if not understood or considered rationally) and much talked about – indeed, it is even the subject of Royal apologies etc etc. I have been sagely informed on countless occasions that 'The British invented the concentration camp in the Boer War' (even though this is quite simply untrue).

Does American popular culture have a similar hand-wringing guilt over what the US Army did / was forced to do in the Philippines? (bearing in mind that even the most conservative estimates put the number of civilian deaths at about 10 times those of the Boer War).

Perhaps I am simply ignorant of this, but I am unaware of this being something the average American beats himself up about or the average Filippino drags up in every debate.

Is this a fair statement?

And if so, why is this the case?
Why the different popular perception of the two conflicts?

We are aware of it, and every now and then make public Acts of Contrition.
But as far as I can tell, we do not obsess about it.

From what I have read about the state of the common Brit's education in history, I would be surprised if more than 10% of the population had even heard of the Boer War.
I would put the number of Americans who have heard of the Philippine insurrection slightly lower.

It takes a specialized education to get all worked up about it. In 50 years, one will mention World War Two and get 95% blank stares.

The only people who learn from history are those who carry grudges. the rest can't be bothered, which makes dealing with those who bear grudges difficult.

One thing is that it led to the adoption of the .45 caliber pistol for Army troops. The smaller pistols of the time would not stop a Moro warrior with one shot.

Common American do not know much about the war and many do not know it ever occurred.

There was no public outcry over methods used in the Philippines. We were bringing civilization to them and the Christian religion. Even today some main stram denominations in the USA do not consider Catholics as Christians! Strange attitude but that was it back then too.

A good movie about the conflict was made back in the 1930s-1940s era (B&W).

Most Americans I'm ashamed to say have little or no idea about their countries history so I would say what happened in the Philippines isn't even know nor thought about I'd be shocked if most have even heard of the country.

Most Americans' first question would be 'Philippines? What's that?'

John the OFM:
I would put the number of Americans who have heard of the Philippine insurrection drastically lower.

Fixed that for you…

Most Americans I'm ashamed to say have little or no idea about their countries history…

I save myself a lot of grief by only being ashamed of things that I myself have done, or have had some control over.
I can hardly be ashamed of things that happened before 1950, can I? Why should I?

Rudy,
I'd disagree that there was no public outcry. There was huge outcry over the use of water torture and other atrocities, the use of volunteers vs. regular army and the fear that the U.S. was becoming an imperial power.

There was a lot of guilt and angst during that time but little if any now.

I agree that most average Americans are unaware of the war or that the Philippines was an American colony for the first half of the twentieth century, some might be vaguely aware that the US was invovled there during WWII. Having said that, there is, as the OFM points out, occasional official hand-wringing but not much public awareness. There was a brief spark of interest in political commentary around the time of the 2004 election when some comparison were made to the war in Iraq and some superficial similarities between the two conflicts.

At the time of the Insurrention, there was considerable outcry in the US against the war and the US colonization policies. William Jennings Bryant made a major issue of it in the 1900 election.

Be careful regarding the claimed civilian casualty rate, most of it was based on comparing a early 1890s Spanish census to a 1903 census conducted by US authorities that seemed to show dramatic drops in population in several provinces. Although there's no denying that the US tactics in the Insurrection were harsh and there were considerable civilian casualties in some areas, there's thinking now that the dramatic reduction was due more to rural Filippinos avoiding being counted in the 1903 census out of fear of increased taxes.

…there's thinking now that the dramatic reduction was due more to rural Filippinos avoiding being counted in the 1903 census out of fear of increased taxes.

I was a Census worker in 2009, and all I was doing was verifying addresses!
Urban dwellers are no more enthusiastic about being counted than rural peasants. In fact, there was a census 2000 or so years ago that was not all that popular either.

William Jennings Bryan made a major issue of it in the 1900 election.

1) Fixed it for you. 2) It didn't help him all that much, given McKinley's increased margin of victory.

Most Americans would not even be aware that the US had ever been in control of the Philippines, nor for that matter know where the islands are on a map. So, there is virtually no hand ringing over what US troops may have done there.

Some other name,
I tried to find some contemporary local newspaper reports (micorofilm) on the war at the library….none to be found.

Concern over the issue may have been regional in importance.

Plus the Philippines were never a Colony for the USA. We didn't exploit the raw materials, grab the land, etc. as various Colonial powers did. I think other than having Naval bases we would have loved to have gotten rid of them asap. Real world Politics made that impossible.

Thanks,

John

Here's a link to an interesting page with footage of the conflict

I've just read this in Wikipedia:

Historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the U.S. does not pursue world domination, but maintains worldwide influence by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges.

You've got to admire the prose…and cringe at the cynicism.

RudyNelson states a point I find surprising. That certain mainstream religions in the US do not consider Catholics as christians. Can that be possible? Why?

I'm in doubt then if Christianity as we know it would be considered by these groups as a waste of 1500 years prior to the religious schism.

Some interesting responses – many thanks.

I wonder how much (if any) of the different perceptions between the conflicts has to do with the fact that the Boers were white, and the Filippinos were brown?

Is it reasonable to consider that this was a factor in the worldwide 'outrage' against British methods in South Africa, and what would seem to have been a relatively muted response to similar (if not much worse) methods employed in the Philippines?

Quebecnordiques,
Amazing but it is a beleif among some main stream churches. because the Pope is revered is one of the main reasons for Catholics not being Christian. And the Orthodox and their use of icons implies idols to many churches as well.

hard to argue logic with some folks. let me take the time to give an interesting example that really happened more than once!

I was standing in line at the bank and the young 20 something girl was getting money in front of me. She was telling the teller that she had just gotten back from a missionary trip. I listened and was impressed at her willingness to go on a mission trip. So when she finished, I asked her where her trip was too. I imagine all sorts of locations but she replied to the country of belgium. I was stunned and pointed out that they were already Christians. She replied, "No, they are Catholics!" I asked her what church she went to expecting a splinter faction response but no she went to the First baptist church.

Recently I was asked to give money for a Methodist minister to make a mission trip to Macedonia! I said no, they did not need a missionary.

Baptists churches in the South are known for sending mission trips, mainly house building, to most south American countries and even Puerto Rico!

Sigh!

back to topic, you can find some very interesting contemporary photos taken my missionaries of native warriors in China, the Philippines and other places. Much of it are in church libraries rather than on the internet.

I have some Baptist in-laws (a splinter faction) who seem not to consider any non-Baptists to be non-Christians.

Mark Twain was one of those who was opposed to the Philippine War. You've got to dig deep to find the writing he did about that.

I also think BullDog69 hit the nail on the head.

Also, Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden" was written specifically to address the debate going in America at the time over whether to take over the Philippines or give them independence as was done in Cuba. He was on the opposite side of the argument than Twain, of course.

Realistically, had the US left the Philippines, they would have been taken over by a European power, most likely Germany.

Here's the link, I completely forgot to post it!

link

Thanks RudyNelson for the explanation. I'll see the local usually polite Mormon missionaries in a new light now! ;-)

I'm sure one reason for the difference is that we weren't an empire. Seems from what others have written in this thread there were some bitter arguments back in the day.
Another reason is the abismal state of our public schools. I was going to say something about WW2 and the Japanese occupation, then thought about another saying the Germans might have taken the Phillipines in which case the Japanese probably wouldn't have been there at all. Or would that have been another post WW1 Japanese aquisition?
How about the idea that we were supposed to be getting rid of their Spanish overlords?

"How about the idea that we were supposed to be getting rid of their Spanish overlords?"

We did. Took the boot of oppression off their neck and tried on our foot. It felt good.

Actually, considering the blood and treasure spent defending and liberating the Philippines we certainly made a terrible fiscal decision if we wanted it as a colony. I think we got into the War against Spain without fully realizing the implications of dealing with what would happen after we trounced them. Reminds me of Iraq in a lot of ways (militarily).

Thanks,

John

Several Points about the relationship between the Philippines and the US.

1. There was opposition in the United States against the occupation.
2. There were terrible atrocities committed by both sides.
3. There were few Americans who question the need of Philippine Independence.
4. The 1934 Philippine Independence Act provided self government of the Philippines after a period of ten years.

"The Jones Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1916 to serve as the new organic law in the Philippines, promised eventual independence and instituted an elected Philippine senate. The Tydings–McDuffie Act (officially the Philippine Independence Act; Public Law 73-127) approved on March 24, 1934 provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence (from the United States) after a period of ten years. World War II intervened, bringing the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945. In 1946, the Treaty of Manila (1946) between the governments of the U.S. and the Republic of the Philippines provided for the recognition of the independence of the Republic of the Philippines and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands."

5. In the 1930s Philippine leaders saw Japan as a real threat and saw the American Military presence as a deterrent. So much so that the Philippine government appointed an old foe, Douglas MacArthur to lead and organize the Philippine Army.

"When the Commonwealth of the Philippines achieved semi-independent status in 1935, President of the Philippines Manuel Quezon asked MacArthur to supervise the creation of a Philippine Army. Quezon and MacArthur had been personal friends since the latter's father had been Governor-General of the Philippines, 35 years earlier. With President Roosevelt's approval, MacArthur accepted the assignment. It was agreed that MacArthur would receive the rank of field marshal, with its salary and allowances, in addition to his major general's salary as Military Ad-visor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines."

6. The Japanese occupation and the joint suffering of Americans and Filipinos served to heal old wounds. The liberation of the Philippines when we could have bypassed the islands and the cost in American lives in doing so created a special relationship between the two countries that would last through the subsequent Cold War.

The British and the Boers.

Once the two Boer Capitals were captured and the surrender signed Lord Roberts declared victory and went back home and took most of Army with him. Kitchener was left with a wide spread guerrilla war and in a vast area. He had few options. Kitchener was a student of the American Civil War and admired Sherman's Campaign in Georgia and particularly Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

He knew that to defeat the "bitter enders" he had to cut off what was supporting them in the field. That would be their farms and families. So he burned the farms and rounded up families into the camps. It was brutal but very effective.

Eventually the Boers would end up ruling South Africa and fought for the British in WWI, putting down a revolt of their own kinsmen. South Africa also served Britain in WWII.

My two cents.

Britian and the US are just as bad as each other. I live in Australia and prior to WWII most white Australians considered themselves as British. In Australia we wiped out a complete indigenous race.

'I'm sure one reason for the difference is that we weren't an empire.' What makes an empire, the US controlled and still controls islands across the Pacific, the biggest one being Hawaii. The Phillipines are over 11000km from the west coast of the US. Just call the conquered land a state and its alright.

Britian did gather women, children and the elderly in camps where many died. You can say what ever you like about the 'enemy' as long as you are the victor.

I can hardly be ashamed of things that happened before 1950, can I? Why should I?

With that logic, why should you be proud of things that happened before 1950? Sorry, a bit off topic by now and I don't mean to pick on OFM. But this just doesn't add up to me.

More on topic. What is the relationship between Brits and Afrikaners theses days? There's plenty of Filipinos in the US and the two countries have had an ongoing shared history for over a century. Perhaps that has something to do with the common perceptions of the past. That and the lamentable state of knowledge of history as has been observed.

The thing that surprised me when I did a S. Africa battlefield tour in 2003 was the palpable divide in SA between 'Afrikaner' whites and English-speaking whites. They unite for cricket and rugby to play the English but at home there's a real St. Andreas fault between them.

Any Bokkes out there to enlighten us outsiders on this matter?

Okay, the Philippines. My wife is a born and raised native and I've been there on holiday and I can attest that there is virtually no animosity held about that war. The only common knowledge relates to their national hero who we, the US, executed as a 'rebel' leader. More to the point, the average Filipino is more interested in today and tomorrow than yesterday so few know much about it beyond grammar school history. There are, of course, intellectuals with more interest – and stronger feelings – but they are rare.

And to the post who said we never treated them as a colony or tapped the natural resources. Um, sorry, not correct. We did – in the form of sugar and pineapple mostly. When the elite took over the country – and they were the ones who wanted independence – some of the most valued properties were the sugar and pineapple plantations.

Sadly, it is the descendants of that elite who continue to run that country and it is deeply corrupt. A country approaching 100 million population run by what amounts to a few score families. And a strange mixture of poverty next to prosperity – and most of the prosperity arrives in the form of payments from Filipinos who work overseas.

And just who did invent concentration camps? I've always found it an amazing irony that Israel had essentially concentration camps for Palestinians. And I don't think there is such a thing as a 'benign' concentration camp – though certainly not the horrors of the Nazis.

As has been pointed out above, America currently has the biggest colonial empire. Most of which have no political representation, except for the colonial possession of Hawaii.

I thought Puerto Rico had a member in the House or are they just with observer status. Most Puerto Ricans that I have talked to do not want to be a State or Independent. If they were a State, they would have to pay Federal Income tax which they do not do now.

A non-voting representative. These days the voting ones only show to make speeches for the record and to vote.

I had a PR friend. His uncle was a bigwig in either the statehood or commonwealth party. When the other won an election the uncle had a heart attack.

I'm sure one reason for the difference is that we weren't an empire

I'll just edit that for you. Obviously the bug affected your original post.

"I'm sure one reason for the difference is that we pretend that we didn't act like an empire."

There you go, now that's consistent with the facts of the matter.

Actually I'd say any residual sympathy for the Boers was considerably reduced by their actions and those of their offspring post 1948.

Heard a funny story about SA in the mid 80s when the ANC were getting militarily strong. All whites had to do national service unless exempted – most of the latter were academics. However, when the security situation began to get hot they got called up as well for basic training. My friend was in a training platoon of long haired, bearded, left-leaning intellectuals. The bull-necked Afrikaner drill SGT turned up and began screaming at them in Afrikaans. He then noticed the blank looks on his platoon of recruits – he stopped and asked in bad English who spoke Afrikaans. Only 2 or 3 hands went up, the platoon cracked up with laughter and the wind was taken out of his sails for the rest of the 4 week training.

The Filipinos don't see the US as having been an imperial power. After all, it was illegal for a non-Spaniard to speak Spanish, but when the US came in we expected every child to go to school, and to learn English.

Where the Spanish treated the Filipinos like subhumans, the US (gave the appearance of) treated them like people.

Sadly, it is the descendants of that elite who continue to run that country and it is deeply corrupt. A country approaching 100 million population run by what amounts to a few score families.

Yeah, pretty much. Had the US *actually* treated the PI like a colony, I think they'd be in better shape now, with a much better distribution of wealth.

"Where the Spanish treated the Filipinos like subhumans, the US (gave the appearance of) treated them like people."
Apart from the tens of thousands that they killed, of course.

Justin Credible

I have lived in SA all my adult life and am married to an Afrikaans girl.
I think the 'divide' has largely broken down, to be honest – in the big cities at least, if not in the countryside. Our friends are a mixture of English / Afrikaans and many people speak them interchangeable, even within a sentence. Sure, you can still get into a drunken argument with a staunch Dutchman who 'hates de English because of what dey did' but these sort of Neanderthals exist in every country.

Much more than the English speakers, the Afrikaners have managed to keep a strong identity though – no doubt partly fueled by the myths of the Boer War which the Apartheid-era government milked for all they were worth. As another poster mentioned about Australia, a generation or two ago, English-speaking South Africans identified very closely with the Motherland – but this seems to have changed. Even as recently as 1981, when HRH Prince Charles married Lady Diana, there were apparently huge parties in Natal – the most 'English' part of South Africa. This year's Royal wedding saw no such fesitivites – though we did host a drunken garden party at our house.

Of course, people will still call one another names and there are still the stereotypes that get bandied about – but that is the same in every country, I'd suggest – sort of like the North / South in England. There is so much inter-mixing of English and Afrikaans now that those 'Boere' who are still fighting the Boer War are a small minority. Though there are still a few of them around.

Justin Credible

I think a lot of such stories came out of the call ups for the Border War. I believe that English-speakers learned to speak Afrikaans very quickly in basic training… the SA army (or SADF as it was called) was heavily Afrikaans-dominated (while the air force and navy were more English) and a young, very English recruit could expect a fairly 'character building' time as a result.

Some regiments – especially those from Natal – were more English in nature, though.

RBS2012

What about their actions before and during the war itself, though? Those have, for some bizarre reason, been over-looked by history. The whole cause of the war was the Boer's determination not to give people the vote (sound familiar?) and during the war, their treatment of loyalists, 'hendsoppers', 'joiners', blacks and coloureds was simply shocking. Northern Natal was pretty much looted and burned to the ground and whole native villages were wiped out throughout the war. There were mass killings of any blacks found serving the crown, in whatever capacity – and this was not random, ad hoc killing: it was in response to orders issued. Mission stations were favourite targets and even as intelligent and erudite man as Jan Smuts ordered the native village of Modderfontein to be wiped out – about 200 blacks perished in that massacre.

Strange how they still somehow emerged as the 'goodies'? The power of propaganda…

There is an excellent cartoon from (I think) Punch – it depicts a leftist protest in the 1960s, protesting against Apartheid. There's this old man in the crowd who says: 'of course, last time I protested, it was in defence of 'the plucky old Boer'.'

Kinda makes you think.

Early Morning Writer

'Sadly, it is the descendants of that elite who continue to run that country and it is deeply corrupt. A country approaching 100 million population run by what amounts to a few score families. And a strange mixture of poverty next to prosper'

I think one could, sadly, make a similar statement about every 'independent' country in Africa. In virtually all cases, the 'elite' are the only ones who really benefitted from 'independence' – pretty much everyone else was better off under Colonial rule. Not fashionable to say, I know – but I have lived and worked all over Africa and I speak from experience.

Some extracts which suggest the Americans did not always treat the Filipinos any better than the Spanish had:

'the behaviour of American soldiers in the Philippines was officially governed by General Orders 100. GO 100 had been written during the Civil War to help Union forces deal with the task of controlling occupied Southern territories. The author, a distinguished lawyer named Frances Lieber, had had sons fighting both sides, and he aimed the orders to be stern but fair… GO 100 demanded the fair treatment of enemy soldiers and of civilians in occupied terrain. But it also required that those enemy soldiers and occupied civilians meet certain rules of behaviour. Enemy soldiers had to wear uniforms. Occupied civilians could not act to hide or assist enemy soldiers without fear of repercussion… if the civilian population acted to hide or assist such guerrilla forces, the occupying army was justified in punitive destruction of civilian property, as long as that destruction was not "wanton"… Captured insurgents could be executed summarily. Towns giving support to Aguinaldo's forces could be destroyed'.
'the population [of one area which was an insurgent stronghold] was forced into zones of concentration around the major towns and anything left outside was considered fair game. American units burned villages, killed animals, and destroyed crops… one officer who took part in the campaign, recalled, "We did not take any prisoners. We shot everybody on sight"'.
After an insurgent attack on American forces at Balangiga in the Philippines left 48 US troops dead, the 'massacre' was avenged by the Americans 'the town of Balangiga was razed to the ground, such that nothing there remains to this day but the bare walls of the church used to conceal the ambushers'.
One American soldier wrote home to tell his family "The town of Titatia [sic] was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight; which was done to a finish. About 1,000 men, women and children were reported killed. I am probably growing heard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger".

All taken from 'A War of Frontier and Empire'.

Anyone know when the 'Boers' began to be known as the Afrikaaners?

BTW, SA & the Flips are two of my favourite countries to visit. Very different but alluring in their separate ways. Wonderful folk in both.

SA food & wine do tend to knock the spots off their Flip counterparts though.

The term seemed to be used a lot to describe any white African, but became more associated with the Dutch-speakers in time. Afrikaans itself was only recognised as an official language (rather than Dutch) in the 1920s (from memory).
A Boer (as opposed to an Afrikaner) still has a slightly different meaning – if you call someone a Boer, the inference is that they are a bit more rough-and-ready and poorly educated than if you call them an Afrikaner. My friend's prim-and-proper wife, for example, objects to being called a Boer even though she is Afrikaans.

Similarly, my wife objects to being called a 'bonehead' but accepts being called a 'clutchplate'.

Where the Spanish treated the Filipinos like subhumans, the US (gave the appearance of) treated them like people.

Apart from the tens of thousands that they killed, of course.

Last time I checked, people die in wars. That's sort of the defining measure of them…

Now, I'd need to doublecheck on the root causes of the Moro Rebellion, but 'yet another jihad' would be my first guess. 'Moro' means 'a native of the Philippine Islands that is Muslim in faith,' after all.

Tens of thousands dead is a pretty typical result when screaming locals with sharp sticks attack a position defended by machine guns. Or anytime the attackers don't have cover, concealment, artillery and/or armor, really.

Lion in the Stars

I completely agree that one must accept deaths as 'just one of those things' in war. But I think the reference was to the large number of civilians who died in both the Philippine-American War and the Boer War – in much greater numbers than those who died fighting in the war.

You could argue (and I would broadly agree) that civilian deaths are a necessary evil of achieving victory in most wars, but these two do seem to have had more than 'normal', or one can be entirely comfortable with.

Or when raising towns to the ground and shooting everything in sight.

I am with Rallynow on this matter;

For the most part the everyday person on both sides of the US-Filipino conflict "got over it", the hand-wringing and greivance-culture is mostly confined to US left-leaning academians looking to write another revisionist history to fulfill the requiments of their endowed PHD chair in some coastal University.

I think a good question to ask is how did the "natives" respond to their "conquerors" over time. Both conflicts got very heavy-handed but, within a few years, both sets of native peoples were willingly providing support to the colonial power in World Wars.

The Filipinos fought a cruel guerilla war against the Japanese occupuiers (instead of welcoming them as liberators) that made the Moro Insuurection look like a picnic (if you have any doubts look into the Battle of Manila where the japanese deliberately placed Filipinos in danger), while the S.A. pretty much saved the Brits bacon in the Western Desert (and earlier in the Great War in German East Afrika as well).

I would venture to say that these are not the actions of people who feel aggrieved or oppressed.

Even the Irish fought for the Brits more often (and far more effectively most of the time) than they fought against them.

Without meaning to belittle those who fought for King and Empire, I am really not sure how 'SA pretty much saved the Brits bacon in the Western Desert'.

Indeed, it was not, perhaps, South Africa's finest hour, militarily:

link

My father used to sing a little ditty re the Sith Ifricans record in WW2.

'There's a hundred thousand yarpies in the old Transvaal but #%$@ all in the fortress of Tobruk'

According to legend, one of the biggest barfights in the history of Cairo started when a group of South Africans walked into Shepheards Hotel to be greeted by a group of Australians who inquired after their welfare.

'Sit down cobber, you look all done in. You look like you've run all the way from Tobruk.'