Speaking of the Philippines and historical predictions, there is a great discussion going on over at the blog Coming Anarchy over the past, present and future status of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were all transferred from Spanish to United States control together, with the 1898 December 10 signing of the Treaty of Paris that concluded the Spanish-American War (as well as a payment of $20 million from the US to Spain.) Both Puerto Rico and Guam remain unincorporated territories of the United States of America, but the US and the Philippines parted company long ago. Reading this discussion gives you a pretty good idea of why the Philippines was spun off into an independent country instead of being either incorporated into the union or kept in colonial status. Today Americans are concerned about being demographically overwhelmed by Hispanics, but true annexation of the Philippines would have been a massive and sudden demographic shock that would have profoundly changed the subsequent development of both. For the people who think the Puerto Rico situation is complicated, try and imagine what might have happened if the Philippines, with a population twenty times that of Puerto Rico, and speaking a polyglot of languages, had all become US citizens overnight.
5 thoughts on “What might have been?”
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Esteemed Frog, besides the obvious difference in size, the Filipinos did fight a credible war with the United States specifically over the question of independence, and in essence forced the U.S. to recognize their right to self-government. Thus, Philippine independence was a foregone conclusion even as WWII approached. There was no such sentiment for independence in Puerto Rico, and (I assume) Guam. Puertorrican ultranationalists distort 19th Century history, but two facts stand out. First, the island received far more immigration from Spain in the 19th Century than it had in the previous three. Second, other than recognizing that they were Puertorricans first, there was no great antipathy to either Spanish rule or Spaniards as a class that would have ignited a revolution. Cuban and Puertorrican intellectual Independence advocates agreed on an uprising on both islands to take place in 1868. The “Grito de Lares” lasted a little more than 24 hours and fizzled out.
Cuba’s “Grito de Yara”, by contrast, ignited the Ten Years War. The end result of Puerto Rico’s “grito” was more support for the autonomy movement, which would have seen the island governing itself under Spain. The harsh conduct of the Ten Years War left a bitterness in its wake that easily re-ignited when Marti landed in 1895. When the Americans landed in Guanica on 25 July 1898, Puertorricans fought in small numbers on both sides. The Americans had the “Porto Rico Scouts” in support of them, while the Spanish had the “guerrilleros”. The small number of casualties, coupled with an archaic view of warfare that led to gentlemanly conduct on both sides, ended in an amicable (if bitter) evacuation of the island by the defeated Spanish forces. Some Puertorricans left with the Spanish, to continue military careers that would endure until the Spanish Civil War, while some Spaniards remained behind to build new careers for themselves on the island. One of them, Captain Angel Rivero, wrote the authoritive history of the Puerto Rico campaign, unfortunately available only in Spanish. (Cronica de la guerra hispano-americana en Puerto Rico).
When the U.S. announced that it was recruiting a Provisional battalion for service on the island, it ranks were soon filled by Puertorrican volunteers. Later incorporated into the Regular Army of the U.S. as the “Porto Rico Regiment”, it was fully incorporated into the U.S. Army as the 65th Infantry Regiment in 1917, the year that Puertorricans were granted U.S. citizenship. Offered a commission in this regiment early in its career, former Spanish Captain Angel Rivero sadly declined, noting that “a man can swear loyalty to a nation only once in his life.” He went on to a career in public education. At the same time that the U.S. was recruiting Puertorricans into its regular forces, Filipinos were being recruited into “Philippine Scout” units manned by Filipino citizens, whose cadre was a mix of Filipino and U.S. officers and NCOs, with that mix being extremely small in the formative years. The scouts were a force parallel to the nascent Philippine Army, whose first Generalissimo was recently retired Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur’s pay and allowances came from the Philippine treasury. This at a time when Raul Luis Esteves, a Puertorrican Regular Army officer, was appointed by President F.D. Roosevelt to command the Puerto Rico National Guard. Esteves pay, of course, came from the U.S. defense budget. All this is esoteric, but it underscores the fact that Filipino independence had been decided earlier in the 20th Century, and that the U.S. conduct towards the Philippines after the Insurrection had always been to prepare them for independence, whatever “colonial” trappings may have existed in pre-WWII Manila.
(As a footnote, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division during the latter stages of the Battle for Okinawa was Pedro del Valle, a Puertorrican. He retired as a three star general in 1948, at a time when the highest rank in the Marine Corps was three stars (Lt General). This when White Southerners ruled the Marine Corps, and diversity policies did not exist.).
Lirelou, I appreciate all your history lessons on Puerto Rico, which I am tragically ignorant of. (In fact, it’s shameful that grade school education in the US completely ignores the history of both Puerto Rico and the Philippines, but that’s really a topic for another discussion.) I’ve actually written a couple of posts about the Philippine colony before, which I’m not sure if you’ve read. Actually, I would say that eventual independence for the Philippines was a foregone conclusion even as the Philippine-American war was raging, but I just do not think it is accurate to say that the war itself led to independence in any way. The fact is that there was just not a strong movement in the US for the Philippines to be a permanent part of the country.
You had the Anti Imperialist League on one side, who were naturally opposed to the colonization in the first place, and on the other side you had xenophobes who were scared of the demographic upset that Philippine integration would cause. Of course there a lot of politicians and business people salivating at the business, strategic and status benefits of having a large colony in Asia, but there was enough support among the voters. Domestic politics killed the possibility. Even the first civilian governor (Taft) was very enthusiastic about developing the Philippines in preparation for independence, although the time frame was left ambiguous for many years, and varied based on who was in power in Washington more than on what was actually going on over there.
By the way, I believe that MacArthur’s salary came out of the Philippine coffers because there was a policy of fiscal self sufficiency from the US budget. Kind of like how they claimed that Iraq’s oil would pay for this invasion/occupation.
Too bad the book you mention is in Spanish only. My high school Spanish is already 95% gone and I was never even at an elementary school reading level. Do you have any reading recommendations in English?
超右翼MF（笑）
“grade school education in the US completely ignores the history of both Puerto Rico and the Philippines, but that’s really a topic for another discussion.”
Coincidentally there is discussion going on(of which I do not intend to join,again)at Marmot’s hole regarding american middle school history education.
Most of the commentators think the bars are just too high for 8th graders . For spending 4years in the system, I agree with the argument,but wonder why they set different standard on Japanese school education which face the same problems.
Perhaps you might be interested to make a thread on this issue in near future.I’ll tell you all I know about what William Walker did in Nicaragua!
Fiscal self-sufficiency is a necessary precondition for independence. To contrast with French colonial policy, merely to underline the difference, only one French colony was economically self-sufficient, and that was French Indochina, whose real economic motor was the three Vietnamese states (Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchine). I assume that the French set up the African Franc Community to prevent the collapse of the currency in their former colonies there, likely aggravated by the fact that their new nations were not fiscally self-sufficient. THe French ended the CFA a few years ago. William Howard Taft was a brilliant public servant, however lackluster a president. (I believe he was 23 when he signed the agreement with the Japanese over Korea.) And, if I’m not mistaken, he was a cousin of T.R.’s.
Sorry, Taft was born in 1857, so he was hardly 23 when the Taft-Katsura agreement was signed. Victim of misinformation that I was too lazy to check.