Katipunan's secret war ended 333 years of Spanish rule
The Philippine Revolution from 1896 to 1898 was Katipunan's independence war against Spain, climaxing three centuries of colonial control in the archipelago. Andres Bonifacio founded the secret society in 1892 after Jose Rizal's La Liga Filipina faltered under repression.
Spain ran the islands from Mexico starting in 1565, paying the bills through the Manila–Acapulco galleon trade. That trade died in 1815 under foreign competition, and after Mexican independence in 1821 Madrid governed directly for the first time, hunting for new revenue. Earlier revolts had been local and short-lived. A liberal spell under Governor-General Carlos María de la Torre, appointed in 1869 after Queen Isabella II's fall, ended with his recall in 1871, and repression under his successor Rafael de Izquierdo followed a soldiers' mutiny in 1872.
Many suspects were shipped to Bioko, Ceuta, the Chafarinas and the Pacific islands, while escapees gathered in Hong Kong, Paris, London and other cities, forming the reformist Propaganda Movement. José Rizal's novels Noli Me Tángere of 1887 and El Filibusterismo of 1891 laid bare colonial and clerical abuses. In 1892 he founded La Liga Filipina to press for reform, only to be exiled to Dapitan within days. On hearing that, Bonifacio and fellow members set up the Katipunan in a house in Tondo, drawing heavily on poorer Filipinos; Rizal refused its request in June 1896 to back armed revolt.
A friar exposed the society on 19 August 1896, forcing an early start, and war was declared at Caloocan with Bonifacio leading assaults around Manila. Emilio Aguinaldo later took over, went into exile under an 1897 truce, then returned in 1898 after the United States declared war on Spain on 21 April following the sinking of the USS Maine. George Dewey's squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on 1 May, Aguinaldo landed on 19 May, and by June rebels held nearly all the countryside while Spain clung to the cities.
Independence was declared in June 1898, but Spain ignored it and sold the islands to Washington in the Treaty of Paris. Fighting with American forces began on 4 February 1899, and the islands became an unincorporated US territory. In 1935 a commonwealth was formed under Manuel L. Quezon, once Aguinaldo's aide-de-camp.
Source: Philippine Revolution
