The Military Government of the Philippine Islands (Spanish: Gobierno militar de los Estados Unidos en las Islas Filipinas; Tagalog: Pamahalaang Militar ng Estados Unidos sa Kapuluang Pilipinas) was a military government in the Philippines established by the United States on August 14, 1898, a day after the capture of Manila, with General Wesley Merritt acting as military governor. General Merrit established this military government by proclamation on August 14, 1898.
During military rule (1898–1902), the U.S. military commander governed the Philippines under the authority of the U.S. president as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces. After the appointment of a civil Governor-General upon the suppression of the First Philippine Republic, the procedure developed that as parts of the country were firmly put under American control, responsibility for the area would be passed to an American-installed civil government.
General Merritt was succeeded by General Elwell S. Otis as military governor, who in turn was succeeded by General Arthur MacArthur. Major General Adna Chaffee was the final military governor. The position of military governor was abolished in July 1902, after which the civilian office Governor-General became the sole executive authority in the Philippines..
The military government, initially with soldiers as teachers, reopened civil and criminal courts and established its own, including a supreme court; and local governments were established as towns and provinces were occupied. The first American-sponsored election was conducted by General Harold W. Lawton on May 7, 1899, in Baliuag, Bulacan. Ch.21
Capture of Manila
By June, U.S. and Filipino forces had taken control of most of the islands, except for the walled city of Intramuros. Admiral Dewey and General Merritt were able to work out a bloodless solution with acting Governor-General Fermín Jáudenes. The negotiating parties made a secret agreement to stage a mock battle in which the Spanish forces would be defeated by the American forces, but the Filipino forces would not be allowed to enter the city. This plan minimized the risk of unnecessary casualties on all sides, while the Spanish would also avoid the shame of possibly having to surrender Intramuros to the Filipino forces. On the eve of the mock battle, General Anderson telegraphed General Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the revolutionary forces, "Do not let your troops enter Manila without the permission of the American commander. On this side of the Pasig River you will be under fire."On August 13, with American commanders unaware that a ceasefire had already been signed between Spain and the U.S. on the previous day, American forces captured the city of Manila from the Spanish in the Battle of Manila. The battle started when Dewey's ships bombarded Fort San Antonio Abad, a decrepit structure on the southern outskirts of Manila, and the virtually impregnable walls of Intramuros. In accordance with the plan, the Spanish forces withdrew while U.S. forces advanced. Once a sufficient show of battle had been made, Dewey hoisted the signal "D.W.H.B." (meaning "Do you surrender?), whereupon the Spanish hoisted a white flag and Manila was formally surrendered to U.S. forces., This battle marked the end of Filipino-American collaboration, as the American action of preventing Filipino forces from entering the captured city of Manila was deeply resented by the Filipinos. Despite the loss of Manila to the Americans, the Filipinos continued liberating the archipelago, freeing most of the provinces by the end of 1898. Tensions simmered between the Filipino and American powers, and the United States provoked the Philippine–American War (1899–1902),. which would prove to be more deadly and costly than the preceding Spanish–American War.
Spanish–American War ends
Article V of the peace protocol signed on August 12 had mandated negotiations to conclude a treaty of peace to begin in Paris not later than October 1, 1898. Ch.15 President McKinley sent a five-man commission, initially instructed to demand no more than Luzon, Guam, and Puerto Rico; which would have provided a limited U.S. empire of pinpoint colonies to support a global fleet and provide communication links. In Paris, the commission was besieged with advice, particularly from American generals and European diplomats, to demand the entire Philippine archipelago. The unanimous recommendation was that "it would certainly be cheaper and more humane to take the entire Philippines than to keep only part of it." On October 28, 1898, McKinley wired the commission that "cessation of Luzon alone, leaving the rest of the islands subject to Spanish rule, or to be the subject of future contention, cannot be justified on political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds. The cessation must be the whole archipelago or none. The latter is wholly inadmissible, and the former must therefore be required." The Spanish negotiators were furious over the "immodest demands of a conqueror", but their wounded pride was assuaged by an offer of twenty million dollars for "Spanish improvements" to the islands. The Revolutionary Government of the Philippines, which governed revolutionary-held provinces in the country, sent Felipe Agoncillo to represent the inhabitants of both the liberated and yet-to-be liberated areas of the country, but he was refused participation in the deliberations. The Spaniards capitulated and on December 10, 1898, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the Spanish–American War. In Article III, Spain ceded its control over the Philippine archipelago to the United States, with the following terms: "Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, and comprehending the islands lying within the following line: [... geographic description elided ...]. The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) within three months after the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty." Appendix D
In the U.S., there was a movement for Philippine independence; some said that the U.S. had no right to a land where many of the people wanted self-government. In 1898 Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and steel magnate, offered to buy the Philippines for $20 million and give it to the Filipinos so that they could be free of United States government.
On November 7, 1900, Spain and the U.S. signed the Treaty of Washington, clarifying that the territories relinquished by Spain to the United States included any and all islands belonging to the Philippine Archipelago, but lying outside the lines described in the Treaty of Paris. That treaty explicitly named the islands of Cagayan Sulu and Sibutu and their dependencies as among the relinquished territories.
Philippine–American War (1899–1902)
Escalation of tensions
The Spanish had yielded Iloilo to the Filipinos in 1898 to trouble the Americans. On January 1, 1899, news had come to Washington, D.C., from Manila that American forces, which had been sent to Iloilo under the command of General Marcus Miller, had been confronted by 6,000 armed Filipinos, who refused them permission to land. President Lopez of the Federal Government of the Visayas" informed General Miller that "foreign troops" would not land "without express orders from the central government of Luzon." Previously, on December 21, 1898, McKinley issued a proclamation of intent to occupy the Philippines. General Otis delayed its publication until January 4, 1899, and published a version that had been edited to avoid conveying the meanings of the terms "sovereignty," "protection," and "right of cessation," which occurred in the unedited version.The text of the amended version, published by General Otis, is quoted in its entirety in See also Wikisource:Letter from E.S. Otis to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, January 4, 1899. Unknown to Otis, the US Department of War had also sent an enciphered copy of the proclamation to General Miller in Iloilo for informational purposes. Miller assumed that it was for distribution and, unaware that a politically-expired version, published in both Spanish and Tagalog translations, eventually made their way to Aguinaldo, president of the Revolutionary Government. Even before Aguinaldo received the unaltered version and observed the changes in the copy that he had received from Otis, Aguinaldo was already upset that Otis was referred to as "Military Governor of the Philippines" in the unaltered version, which he had received from Otis (the unaltered version said "in the Philippines."). Aguinaldo did not miss the significance of the alteration, which Otis had made without authorization from Washington.
On January 5, Aguinaldo issued a counterproclamation that summarized what he saw as American violations of the ethics of friendship, particularly regarding the events in Iloilo. The proclamation concluded, "Such procedures, so foreign to the dictates of culture and the usages observed by civilized nations, gave me the right to act without observing the usual rules of intercourse. Nevertheless, in order to be correct to the end, I sent to General Otis commissioners charged to solicit him to desist from his rash enterprise, but they were not listened to. My government can not remain indifferent in view of such a violent and aggressive seizure of a portion of its territory by a nation which arrogated to itself the title champion of oppressed nations. Thus it is that my government is disposed to open hostilities if the American troops attempt to take forcible possession of the Visayan Islands. I denounce these acts before the world, in order that the conscience of mankind may pronounce its infallable verdict as to who are the true oppressors of nations and the tormentors of human kind."
After some copies of that proclamation had been distributed, Aguinaldo ordered the recall of undistributed copies and issued another proclamation, which was published the same day in El Heraldo de la Revolucion, the official newspaper of the Philippine government: "As in General Otis's proclamation he alluded to some instructions edited by His Excellency the President of the United States, referring to the administration of the matters in the Philippine Islands, I in the name of God, the root and fountain of all justice, and that of all the right which has been visibly granted to me to direct my dear brothers in the difficult work of our regeneration, protest most solemnly against this intrusion of the United States Government on the sovereignty of these islands.
I equally protest in the name of the Filipino people against the said intrusion, because as they have granted their vote of confidence appointing me president of the nation, although I don't consider that I deserve such, therefore I consider it my duty to defend to death its liberty and independence."
Otis, taking both proclamations as a call to arms, strengthened American observation posts and alerted his troops. In the tense atmosphere, some 40,000 Filipinos fled Manila within a period of 15 days..