because they lost hope; because some of them had been injured or lost their health through life in the
field; and some because their families obliged them to surrender.” 29
FIVE
Why the Americans Won
The Cost of War
THEN AND THEREAFTER THE VICTORY achieved by policies of J. Franklin Bell was controversial. His concentration policy had successfully
isolated Malvar’s guerrillas from the noncombatants. During a four-month campaign, four Americans soldiers were killed and
nineteen wounded. The insurgents suffered 147 killed, 104 wounded, and 821 captured, and 2,934 surrendered. 1 For many Americans the testimony of Malvar’s brother-in-law, who was also a province commander, vindicated Bell’s strategy:
“The means used in reconcentrating the people, I think, were the only ones by which war could be stopped and peace brought
about in the province.” 2 However, there was the troubling fact that Bell’s policies also caused the deaths of about 11,000 civilians.
The problem of civilian deaths emerged by mid-January 1902 when it became apparent that civilians concentrated inside the
protected zones faced famine. One American station commander reported that 30,000 civilians had been herded into an area that
normally supported 5,000. Bell understood that General Order 100 decreed that the occupying army provide for the occupied.
Accordingly, Bell issued orders to make the people cultivate crops inside the zones. He ordered the importation of a tremendous
quantity of rice to feed civilians. He ordered his subordinates to bring food from outside the zones back to the towns. At
the time he worried that these measures “might possibly create in the minds of some an impression that greater leniency in
enforcing” past policies was desired. 3 Not so, he hastened to assure his subordinates.
American food distribution efforts failed to stop the dying. Large numbers of people still went hungry because of the confluence
of multiple factors: a natural plague had decimated the water buffalo, the draft animal indispensable for agricultural pursuits;
American troops had slaughtered surviving water buffalo wherever they found them outside the zones; the imported rice was
thiamine-deficient polished rice that compromised people’s immune systems; field commanders found it difficult to transport
food from remote mountain hiding places back to the towns and often ignored this part of Bell’s instructions.
People inside the zones did not starve to death. Rather, the lack of food and the poor nutritional value of what food there
was weakened them, making them susceptible to the real killers: the anopheles mosquitos. The mosquitos normally preferred
water buffalo blood. Deprived of their usual prey, they turned to human targets, which, by virtue of Bell’s concentration
policy, they found con veniently herded in dense masses. Malaria killed thousands. In addition, overcrowded conditions and
extremely poor sanitation promoted the killing transmission of measles, dysentery, and eventually cholera. Civilian deaths
in Batangas were an unintended consequence of Bell’s policy of concentration and food destruction.
ON JULY 4, 1902, President Theodore Roose velt, who became president after McKinley’s assassination, declared the Philippine
Insurrection over and civil government restored. Roosevelt did make a caveat regarding Moro territory, a handful of southern
Philippine islands dominated by an Islamic people, but in the general glow of victory few noticed. He issued a fulsome thanks
to the army, noting that they had fought with courage and fortitude in the face of enormous obstacles: “Bound themselves by
the laws of war, our soldiers were called upon to meet every device of unscrupulous treachery and to contemplate without reprisal
the infliction of barbarous cruelties upon their comrades and friendly natives. They were instructed, while punishing armed
resis tance, to conciliate the
field; and some because their families obliged them to surrender.” 29
FIVE
Why the Americans Won
The Cost of War
THEN AND THEREAFTER THE VICTORY achieved by policies of J. Franklin Bell was controversial. His concentration policy had successfully
isolated Malvar’s guerrillas from the noncombatants. During a four-month campaign, four Americans soldiers were killed and
nineteen wounded. The insurgents suffered 147 killed, 104 wounded, and 821 captured, and 2,934 surrendered. 1 For many Americans the testimony of Malvar’s brother-in-law, who was also a province commander, vindicated Bell’s strategy:
“The means used in reconcentrating the people, I think, were the only ones by which war could be stopped and peace brought
about in the province.” 2 However, there was the troubling fact that Bell’s policies also caused the deaths of about 11,000 civilians.
The problem of civilian deaths emerged by mid-January 1902 when it became apparent that civilians concentrated inside the
protected zones faced famine. One American station commander reported that 30,000 civilians had been herded into an area that
normally supported 5,000. Bell understood that General Order 100 decreed that the occupying army provide for the occupied.
Accordingly, Bell issued orders to make the people cultivate crops inside the zones. He ordered the importation of a tremendous
quantity of rice to feed civilians. He ordered his subordinates to bring food from outside the zones back to the towns. At
the time he worried that these measures “might possibly create in the minds of some an impression that greater leniency in
enforcing” past policies was desired. 3 Not so, he hastened to assure his subordinates.
American food distribution efforts failed to stop the dying. Large numbers of people still went hungry because of the confluence
of multiple factors: a natural plague had decimated the water buffalo, the draft animal indispensable for agricultural pursuits;
American troops had slaughtered surviving water buffalo wherever they found them outside the zones; the imported rice was
thiamine-deficient polished rice that compromised people’s immune systems; field commanders found it difficult to transport
food from remote mountain hiding places back to the towns and often ignored this part of Bell’s instructions.
People inside the zones did not starve to death. Rather, the lack of food and the poor nutritional value of what food there
was weakened them, making them susceptible to the real killers: the anopheles mosquitos. The mosquitos normally preferred
water buffalo blood. Deprived of their usual prey, they turned to human targets, which, by virtue of Bell’s concentration
policy, they found con veniently herded in dense masses. Malaria killed thousands. In addition, overcrowded conditions and
extremely poor sanitation promoted the killing transmission of measles, dysentery, and eventually cholera. Civilian deaths
in Batangas were an unintended consequence of Bell’s policy of concentration and food destruction.
ON JULY 4, 1902, President Theodore Roose velt, who became president after McKinley’s assassination, declared the Philippine
Insurrection over and civil government restored. Roosevelt did make a caveat regarding Moro territory, a handful of southern
Philippine islands dominated by an Islamic people, but in the general glow of victory few noticed. He issued a fulsome thanks
to the army, noting that they had fought with courage and fortitude in the face of enormous obstacles: “Bound themselves by
the laws of war, our soldiers were called upon to meet every device of unscrupulous treachery and to contemplate without reprisal
the infliction of barbarous cruelties upon their comrades and friendly natives. They were instructed, while punishing armed
resis tance, to conciliate the
Similar Books
