In my opinion The United States ordeal with Annexing the Philippines and the idea that we had of going into war with them was great mistake and should have been avoided. The Filipinos and Americans were deadlocked in war with each other. This all became a controversy with the two nations in 1898 when the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United Stated ceded all seven thousand islands of the Philippine archipelago to the United States, for just a mere twenty-million dollars. Congress had approved the treaty with Spain, by February of 1899. Mckinley was on the verge of calling for the annexation of the Philippines which brought on a bloody two year struggle. In my opinion the United States was the cause of all of this because of three …show more content…
First of all I think that the if we would have maybe let some of the well respected citizens in our great nation to speak their opinions and if the government would have listened to the that maybe we could have evaded war and ended our struggle with the Filipinos peacefully. One example of the great citizens that I was talking about would be Mark Twain who said "We have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world…" If we would have listened to Mark Twain who knows how things would have ended up!
Secondly I believe that Mckinley made a few mistakes in some of the decisions that he made. He asked for Congress to help him make a declaration for the war. He also was hurt and insulted be the terms of him being weak and hypocritical, so I believe that he was starting to take all of this a little personal and he ended up taking it just a bit to far. If he would have been rational in the decisions that he made than maybe we would have not went to war with the Filipino’s.
My third and final argument is that the United States always has to be the big bad bully and we can’t let anyone push us around but we always
century, the outcome of the Spanish-American war divided Americans into those for and against the annexation of the Philippines. The masses supporting it saw the islands as a strong foothold for the country in Chinese markets, compared to the minority which believed the United States was founded to escape oppression and should not lead to doing the same upon others. America becoming an imperial power shifted the world stage, and opened opportunity in trade on the other side of the world. Annexing the Philippines changed how other countries saw the United States, but more importantly it changed how Americans feel about their country; citizens rallied around the flag after defeating Spain because surpassing the empire’s navy gave them something positive to think of after all the turmoil over the past hundred years (and still at the time over working/living conditions and inequality between races/genders). It gave the public a reason to be patriotic. If the United States did not annex the Philippines when it did, it would not have had the ability to become the strongest government in the world and increase exports throughout Asia, but at what cost? American leaders decided it would be a good power move, but did
The ending of the Spanish-American War left the United States with a controversial question. Many debates rose throughout the U.S. about whether the Philippine Islands should be annexed or not. The Philippines fought along side with the United States against Spanish to gain their independence. The annexation of the Philippine Islands would be unjustified and an act of tyranny. The decision done by the U.S. to annex the Philippines would rise uncertainty between the two countries.
The Spanish American War was started in the spring and ended in the summer of 1898. The United States of America gained territories from Spain. The US gained and the Philippine islands (Background Essay). The US had three options but the US decided to annex the philippines. Many People were against annexation such as Andrew Carnegie, Grover Cleveland, and Mark Twain. So should the US have annexed the Philippines?
The U.S was right to annex them because then the Philippines got away from Spain. Spain did not treat the Philippines very well. Also the Philippines were not strong enough togovern themselves. They would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was (doc C).
The American Anti-Imperialist league has a platform I fully agree with. “We protest against the extension of American sovereignty by Spanish methods…” (Doc A, American Anti-Imperialist League). In trying to conquest other nations, the US being identical to the enemy, Spain. What is the point in helping the Filipinos gain their independence if we are about to trap them back into the exact same situation? Some of you may think that our only choice is to annex them.
Another victory through the Treaty of Paris was the possession of the Philippines. Though the Filipino independence leader Emilio Aguinaldo had aided in the defeat of Spain in 1898, USA refused independence to the Islands and a vicious three year war ensued. A civil government was created after the capture of Aguinaldo under William Taft and this showed a drastic change in American foreign policy. They could no longer justify interference with the excuse of the islands being within its sphere of influence but McKinley argued that America had the role to “uplift and civilize and christianize [Filipinos] as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died." McKinley was either unaware or simply chose not to inform the people that, except for some Muslim tribesmen in the south, the Filipinos were Roman Catholics, and, therefore, already Christians. In reality, the annexation of the Philippines was the centerpiece of the "large policy" pushed by the imperialist cabal to enlist the United States in the ranks of the great powers.
There can be no doubt that we had full knowledge that they were fighting for their own independence.” The United States understands that the Filipinos wants their own independence but still annexed the Philippine because they think it was the right thing to do without asking the Filipinos what they want and their
Scholars typically cite imperialism as a primary cause of World War I, and though controversial, America was no stranger to the practice. In 1898, the United States won the Spanish American War, resulting in the Paris Treaty. America gained several formerly Spanish colonies from their victory, and through the Treaty of Paris, they annexed the Philippines. Filipino insurgents, who had fought for the Philippines ' independence, rebelled against the annexation. This led to the Philippine-American War. However, not all Americans supported the annexation. In fact, the Paris Treaty passed by only one vote, and anti-imperialists such as Mark Twain contended with pro-imperialists like Theodore Roosevelt. Despite the debate, the United States should not have annexed the Philippines, because the decision was unnecessary, hypocritical, and tyrannical.
I do not think that the United States were the good guys in the Philippine- American war. The only right that we had to be in the Philippines was the right taken from Spain. In many ways the imperialism idea that the U.S. had were undemocratic. The United States at the time was developing and did not have adequate resources to keep military in foreign places. I think that we should have focused on own land. We have a large chunk of land full of growth possibilities. The war was not only brutal on both sides, but it also increased tensions about race. Overall the war did not accomplish much besides hurt both sides. The United States should have stopped their efforts after they met resistance.
America's short war with Spain in 1898 was the nation's first step on the pathway to becoming a world power. The U.S. victory brought with it the unintended possession of the Philippines and a vested interest in the politics of the Pacific region that would ultimately lead to conflict with Japan. As an immediate outcome of the war, America found itself embroiled in an insurgency in the Philippines that closely mimicked the conflict in Vietnam over 60 years later.
Over 1,000 people dead in the Spanish-American War, and the United States with a victory to brag about, the Philippine Islands are finally freed from Spain. Directly after the United States won the Spanish-American War, the Philippines were up for grabs and desired by many. Spain treated the Philippines badly, and did not give them enough freedoms. After the big win of the war, the “United States suddenly became a major world power” (Should the United States... 141). America did not know what to do with the Philippine Islands. They had two choices; annex or not annex. Should the Philippines have been added to the United States? The United States should annex the Philippines because, if not it would be cowardly,
The bald red, white, and blue eagle of American Democracy is coming for you Phillipines, run while you can! Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, was so infatuated with the idea of democracy, and he wanted every country to have a little taste of American freedom! After America's victory in the Spanish American War, George Dewey and his 11,000 American troops marched into manila and were unsure whether to liberate or occupy the filipino people. Thinking the they were here to help, the Filipino rebels trusted the Americans, but were soon betrayed as Dewey decided to occupy the land. The United States had three choices to determine what they wanted to do with the Philippines: Give it back to Spain, Give the filipino people their freedom, or to annex the whole country itself. With much debate ranging from artists, influential citizens, and government officials, the US ultimately decided it would annex! The United States should not have annexed the Philippines but rather should have given them their independence. While others may think the annexation of the Philippines would have benefited them, what the Philippines really needed was
First reason, why we shouldn’t have annexed the Philippines is because we have different beliefs. In document B, Providence to the Americans mean Heaven. It means that the reason they were in war with the Filipinos is because it was their destiny. God gave them the strength and power so they can expand their empire. They didn’t care what the Philippines believed in, they took action in what they “knew” god would have wanted them to do. In document D, Bryan talks about how the Americans aren’t Christian as they say they are. He says, “
The American-Filipino war, the Filipino Revolution, the Filipino Insurrection, whatever name you give to the armed conflict between America and the Philippines that occurred at the end the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, it happened and it stays as a footnote on both America’s history and the Philippines’ history. This war, or how my friend humorously called it, “A chain of war atrocities”, ended in the Americans’ favor. However, the question stands, did the Filipino forces ever stand a chance against the Americans? Also, did the Filipino war help the Filipinos get what they wanted all along, Filipino Independence? For the former, you have to look at the belligerents on both sides as well as their tactics along with the reasons of why my friend called the conflict a chain of war atrocities rather than a war; for the latter, you must instead look at the different states the Philippines was in after the war leading up to its independence in order to find out if the American-Filipino war acted as a factor.
It has three major island groups which are the Luzon, the largest island and where the capital is located; Visayan, and Mindanao. Eleven islands make up 94 percent of the Philippine landmass, and two of these--Luzon and Mindanao--measure 105,000 and 95,000 square kilometers, respectively. They, together with the cluster of the Visayan Islands that separate them, represent the three principal regions of the archipelago (many scattered islands in a large body of water) that are identified by the three stars on the Philippine flag.