1890-1910: The Things They Don't Mention.



What do you know about the Philippine-American War? I would wager nothing. Am I right? I am, aren't I? American History 1024 (Civil War to Present) tends toward leaving out most of the shitty things that we've done after the War of Succession.

So basically what happened is this: Starting from the middle of the 16th century, and for the following three hundred years (1571-1892), the Philippines were a Spanish colony. In 1892 the Filipinos revolted against the Spanish. This conflict dragged on for a while, during which time the Spaniards also got involved in a war with us. In June 1898 they declared independence, but both the US and Spain ignored it. In December of that year, Spain ceded the Philippines to the US along with Gaum, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Three months later hostilities between the Filipinos and their new imperialist American overlords came to a head, and we went to war with them. The war dragged for four years officially and fifteen years unofficially. The Phillipines didn't gain their independence until 1946, after WWII as part of the Treaty of Manila. Things went fairly well for about 40 years until the Marcos' revolution in '86, and you probably know the rest.

Before today, I didn't know a lick of this. Well, obviously I knew about the Spanish-American War, but not about any of the Filipino shit. Did you learn this in school? I didn't.

I don't really know that much about this twenty year period in world history, but I'm now going to read up on it. I suggest you do the same, as the end of the 19th century was the era of crumbling empires, burgeoning independence of new democracies, and the formation of the modern era of western society as we live it. You should really learn this stuff.

Read more about the Philippine-American War.
- posted by Mason @ 10:13 PM