Bibliography: The Philippine-American War

Books and Articles:

Abad, Antonio K. General Macario L. Sakay: Was He a Bandit or a Patriot? Manila: J.B. Feliciano & Sons, 1955.

This is the story of the struggle of General Macario Sakay to continue the war against the United States when most Filipino generals surrendered or were captured. Americans portrayed Sakay as a bandit to discredit his patriotism.

Achutegui, Pedro S. de, S.J. and Bernad, Miguel, S. J. Aguinaldo and the Revolution of 1896: A Documentary History. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1972.

A chronologically-arranged compilation of documents covering the first two years of the Philippine Revolution. English translations accompany the original text, and each document contains a brief introduction about the source and its historical setting

Agoncillo, Teodoro. Malolos: The Crisis of the Republic. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1960.

Covering the second phase of the Philippine Revolution, Agoncillo concludes that the ascendancy of the ilustrados, or middle class, sealed the fate of the Revolution. They betrayed the masses and the revolution.

Anderson, Warwick. "‘Where Every Prospect Pleases and Only Man is Vile’: Laboratory Medicine as Colonial Discourse," Vicente L. Rafael, Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays on Filipino Cultures. Manila: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1995, pp. 83-112.

Anderson examines how the early American perceptions of the Philippines and the Filipinos reinforced the colonial discourse and shaped American health and sanitation policies.

Bain, David. Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

This book focuses on the two characters of the Philippine Revolution, General Emilio Aguinaldo (President of the Philippine Republic) and General Frederick Funston (the American military adventurer responsible for the capture of Aguinaldo). In 1982, Bain literally followed the footsteps of Aguinaldo and Funston in northern Luzon. In the process, Bain relived the events leading to their confrontation and the fall of the Philippine Republic in 1901.

Blount, James H. The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.

Based on his personal knowledge and observations, Blount accounts for the American annexation and pacification of the Philippines. He served as Officer of the U.S. Volunteers in the Philippines in 1899-1901 and a U.S. District Judge assigned to the Islands in 1901-1905. Writing in 1912, he advocated for Philippine independence since the Filipinos are one people, one race, one color, and whose political unity was forged by their common struggle for independence.

Francisco, Luzviminda. "The Philippine-American War," Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen R. Shalom, The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. Boston: South End Press, 1987, pp. 8-19.

This essay proves that because of the scale, duration, casualties, and nature of the conflict, the Philippine-American War should be regarded as the United States’ first Vietnam.

Gates, John. Schoolbooks and Krags: the United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973.

In this work Gates rehabilitates the U.S. Army’s reputation during the Philippine-American War of committing brutality and unspeakable atrocities against the Filipinos. Instead, he focuses on the benevolent and humane activities undertaken by American soldiers in the field of education, public health, municipal government, and others.

Ileto, Reynaldo. Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979.

In this widely praised, ground-breaking work, Ileto utilizes the Pasyon, the story of the life and death of Jesus Christ, to probe the psyche of the Filipinos and to explain the persistence of social movements in Philippines history.

_______. "Cholera and the Origins of the American Sanitary Order in the Philippines," Rafael, Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays on Filipino Cultures. Manila: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1995 pp. 51-82.

In this essay, Ileto argues that the cholera epidemic in 1902-1903 should be viewed as another episode in the Philippine-American War, when scientific medicine replaced weapons and teachers in the United States’ efforts to pacify the Filipinos.

Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People. Vol. 5: "The Reform and Revolution" and Vol 6: "Under Stars and Stripes." Manila: Asia Publishing Co.: Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest, 1998.

Kasaysayan is a ten volume account of the history of the Philippines by leading Filipino historians and scholars. Volume 5 is a comprehensive and analytical account of the ilustrado-led Reform Movement and the Katipunan-initiated Philippine Revolution.

LeRoy, James. The Americans in the Philippines: a History of the Conquest and First Years of Occupation. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914.

This is a two volume account of the conquest, pacification, and early years of the American occupation of the Philippines.

Majul, Cesar Adib. Mabini and the Philippine Revolution. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1996.

This is more than simply a biography of Apolinario Mabini, the Brains of the Philippine Revolution. Majul examines the brilliance of Mabini who, as chief adviser of Emilio Aguinaldo, charted the course of the country from a dictatorship, to a Revolutionary government, and, finally, to a Republic.

______. The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Philippine Revolution. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1957.

In this book, Majul asserts that the Philippine Revolution was not a purposeless upheaval; rather its philosophy can be traced to the ideas of the French Enlightenment and in fact it drew inspiration from the revolution in Europe and the Americas.

May, Glenn. Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

May fuels controversy in this examination of the Philippine-American War in Batangas, a Tagalog province south of Manila. He rejects previously accepted explanations, popularized by Teodoro Agoncillo, that the Philippine Revolution was a revolt of the masses. Instead, he argues that the experience of Batangas was unique because it was the political and economic elite of the province who became the backbone of local resistance, serving as military leaders and extending financial and other forms of assistance to the revolutionary troops.

Schirmer, Daniel. Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Cambridge: Schenkem Publishing Co., 1972.

This is the story of the Anti-Imperialist League and its efforts to hinder the imperialist course of the United States at the turn of the century. Its prominent members vigorously opposed the American war campaign in the Philippines, calling it an unjust war of conquest.

Wolff, Leon. Little Brown Brother: America’s Forgotten Bid for Empire Which Cost 250,000 Lives. New York: Kraus Printing Co., 1970.

Written in 1961, this is a sympathetic interpretation of the Philippine-American War. Wolff concludes that the entire episode constituted a "forcible annexation [that] was morally wrong."

Videos:

The United States and the Philippines: In Our Image. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1989. VHS, 3 videocassettes of 58 min. each, pt. 1, 2 & 3.

Three videotapes survey Philippine-American relations from the United States’ acquisition of the Philippines at the turn of the nineteenth century to the People Power Revolution of 1986. The series examine how the United States had shaped the Philippines in its image.

This Bloody Blundering Business or the Price of Empire. S.l: Cinema Guild, 1992. VHS, 30 min.

A good account of the seething debate between the annexationists and anti-imperialists at the turn of the century. The video highlights the brutality of American troops during the Philippine-American War.

Savage Acts: Wars, Fairs and Empire. New York: American Social History Productions, Inc., 1995. VHS, 30 min.

Historical documents, pictures, and film clips narrate the story of American imperialist expansion and the acquisition of the Philippines. It also dramatizes the racism in the St. Louis World Fair of 1904 where the Igorots, an upland ethnic group in northern Luzon, were displayed as "savage possessions" of the United States.