Annexation's aftermath: a war Congress later soft-named insurrection
The Philippine–American War erupted in early 1899 after the United States annexed the former Spanish colony the Filipino republic claimed as independent. Denied an armistice, the Philippine government on 2 June 1899 urged continued resistance in what Washington often labeled an insurrection.
The road to war ran through an earlier revolt. Andrés Bonifacio, a Manila clerk, founded the secret Katipunan on 7 July 1892 to throw off Spanish rule, and when Spain uncovered it in August 1896 the uprising began. Emilio Aguinaldo, mayor of Cavite El Viejo, rose to command it, but by late 1897 Spanish forces had him cornered at Biak-na-Bato. On 14 December he accepted a deal paying 800,000 Mexican pesos in instalments if he went abroad, and he sailed to Hong Kong with 25 companions, publicly urging disarmament while privately planning to fund a fresh campaign.
A meeting with American consul E. Spencer Pratt in Singapore on 22 April 1898, later disowned by Washington, drew Aguinaldo home; US ships landed him in Cavite on 19 May. Independence was declared that June, a republic followed in January 1899, and within three months of his return Filipino forces governed almost every island except besieged Manila. The United States, which acquired the islands through the December 1898 Treaty of Paris, recognised neither step, and shooting started in the Battle of Manila on 4 February 1899.
After failing in open battle, Filipino troops switched to guerrilla warfare by November 1899. Aguinaldo was captured on 23 March 1901 and Washington proclaimed victory on 4 July 1902, though some bands, along with Moro communities in the south and Pulahan religious movements, fought on for years. At least 200,000 civilians died, mostly of hunger and disease including a cholera outbreak that killed at least 150,000, and some estimates approach a million. Both sides committed atrocities, and American reprisals included scorched earth and forced relocation into camps where thousands perished.
Self-rule arrived in stages: an elected assembly under the 1902 Organic Act, a first formal promise of independence in the 1916 Jones Act, and a Commonwealth under the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act. Japanese occupation delayed the final step until 1946.
Source: Philippine–American War
