The War Your American History Teachers Probably Didn't Tell You About

How do you feel? Are you Philippines? Filipino? Ok I’ll stop. My name is Mr. Beat, and I often

put really bad jokes into my videos like the one you just heard. (Stop trying to be funny)

Yeah, in this video, I’m definitely NOT going to try to be funny, as this is serious stuff.

This video is about a war you probably don’t know much about. If you’re an American,

you likely didn’t hear much about it in American history class, and that’s likely

because it’s a war that the American government has preferred you just…uh…not remember. You see,

this war makes the United States look bad. Very bad, as a matter of fact. It’s a war

that some historians say killed as many as one million people. A war in which

American soldiers committed all kinds of atrocities, including pillage, torture,

rape, and the massacre of civilians. A war of imperialism, in which the United States wanted to

control the Philippines to exploit its resources and use it to expand trade throughout Asia.

Here’s the story of the Philippine-American War.

Once upon a time….well specifically, on April 30, 1898, an American Commodore named George Dewey

sailed a small fleet into the Philippines, an archipelago made up of at least 7,100 islands in

Southeast Asia. At the time, Spain controlled the islands, but it was quickly losing its grip over

them. You see, for the past couple years, Filipino nationalists, or those who wanted the Philippines

to break free from Spain so that it could be its own country, had been revolting. Led by Emilio

Aguinaldo, these Filipino revolutionaries had had lots of success by the time Dewey showed up. All

that was mainly left was for them to capture was Manila, the capital of the Spanish East Indies.

Meanwhile, the United States was now ALSO at war with Spain, in what became known as the Spanish

American War. So that’s what had led Dewey to take his fleet to the Spanish-controlled

Philippines. On May 1, Dewey’s forces attacked the Spanish navy stationed at Manila Bay,

easily defeating it. You see, Dewey’s ships were made of steel, and the Spanish ships were wooded.

The Spanish lost 350 men…the Americans lost zero, in what became known as The Battle of Manila Bay.

Meanwhile, Aguinaldo wasn’t even in the Philippines at this time. He was

in Hong Kong. After hearing about the American victory in Manila Bay,

he returned to the Philippines to resume the revolution.

And here’s the thing, while the Americans were showing up acting like they were gonna save the

day, in reality the Filipinos were likely going to kick the Spanish from the islands anyway.

Under Aguinaldo’s leadership, the Filipinos surrounded Manila and turned over

15,000 Spanish prisoners to the Americans. Aguinaldo and his forces also officially declared

independence from Spain. Aguinaldo also declared himself president of the Philippines. Meanwhile,

the German navy also decided to show up acting like THEY were going to take over

the Philippines now. Dewey sent a telegraph back to the United States to request more

troops so that the AMERICANS could fully take over the Philippines. That said,

Aguinaldo and Dewey had both agreed that they would join forces to take Spain down.

Eh, we’ll figure out the details later.

Over the next two months, more and more American troops arrived in the Philippines,

enough to scare the Germans away. Soon the 13,000 Spanish troops in Manila were completely cut off