This post is not, as you might expect, about Americans in World War 2. Although that war did indeed feature concentration camps in the Philippines for captured Americans. Run by the Japanese, they were brutal places. They are also worth learning about. Instead, though, today I mean to describe the American concentration camps in the Philippines that existed between 1899 and 1902.

This is another of the topics that the racist politicians of modern America don’t want you to know about. It’s something Americans Aren’t Supposed To Know about their history. What is the story?

American Concentration Camps in the Philippines – The Background

In 1898, the US went to war with Spain. It was not a difficult war for America to win. America was a modern industrial power with massive military potential. Spain was a mid-level European power that had long been in decline. Furthermore, Spain had no allies in the war. The result was predictable before the fighting even began. Spain fought a couple battles out of a sense that it should at least do something. Then it entered negotiations to end the war. (This is very simplified, true, but the fighting was brief.)

Ironically, one of the things that had aroused American feelings against Spain was Spain’s use of concentration camps in Cuba. Cuba, still a Spanish colony when 1898 began, had a vibrant independence movement. Spain, seeking to hold its colony, was using concentration camps as one way to put down the independence movement. There were many other reasons for the war, too, like the sinking of the Maine in Havana’s harbor and the desire of American businesses to tap into Cuba’s natural resources.

In any case, when the war was over, the US gained possession of a number of former Spanish colonies. Cuba did not become an official US possession, although the US claimed the right to interfere in Cuban foreign policy through the Platt Amendment. The Philippines, however, did pass to American control.

Independence for the Philippines?

That is what many leaders in the Philippines wanted. The most well-known of these leaders was Emilio Aguinaldo. He led the Philippines into a war for independence against the United States that lasted from 1899 to 1902.

Why did the US resist this anti-colonial movement? As was often the case, racism played a role. Part of the American justification for taking the Philippines from Spain was that they weren’t ready for self-government. Political cartoons with racist depictions of the former Spanish colonies as unruly, undisciplined children were popular. It’s also true that the islands had significant natural resources US businesses might exploit. The Philippines could also help project American naval power to East Asia.

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American Concentration Camps in the Philippines Become Reality

So, rather than grant independence to the Philippines, the US entered a war to subjugate the islands instead. This war lasted parts of four years, 1899 to 1902. Officially. Unofficially it dragged on until 1914. (The unofficial phase included the infamous Moro Massacre, satirized by Mark Twain in 1906.)

This is where the story gets ugly. This war, although probably you’ve never heard of it, brought out the worst parts of American society. The US Army established free fire zones—anyone, soldier or civilian, was considered an enemy combatant and could be shot. This included anyone over 12 years of age. Soldiers tortured native islanders. The so-called “water cure” was a popular method.

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The occupying American army eventually established numerous concentration camps. These American concentration camps in the Philippines were killers. The war’s body count grew accordingly. Historians place the number killed in these camps anywhere from 200,000 to 1,000,000 people.

“Benevolent Assimilation”

This was what President William McKinley termed “benevolent assimilation.” (It brings to mind how America would win the hearts and minds of Iraqis while occupying their country, does it not?) Mark Twain had, perhaps, a better description of the situation. In his famous essay “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” he writes, “There is something curious about this—curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas—one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land.”

Later in the same essay, his sarcasm thickens and reaches its height.

“There have been lies, yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous, but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his and land his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits’ work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and 90 per cent of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, are members not only of the church but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right.”

Same Old Response

As usual, politicians pontificated about America’s sacred duty in the islands. They tossed in plenty of racism to justify the sanctity of their actions. Alfred Beveridge, an active imperialist senator from Indiana, stated, “We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world.”

The people of the Philippines did not see things quite that way. After the carnage was over, one wrote of the American occupation as “ten years of bitter deception.”

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