what is the underlying cause of the fil-am war?

Answer 1

The Filipino-American war is the result of Americans not recognizing Philippine independence. Even in their history books the war is called an "insurrection" because the Americans did not consider the Philippines an independent nation, but rather a colonial acquisition. The US wanted the Philippines but the Filipinos wanted their freedom. The US secretly "purchased" the islands from Spain, just as the Filipinos were winning against Spain for independence. Another case of white pride. Now come the enthnocentric, racial Americans who think the Filipinos are incapable of ruling themselves even as the Filipino government was already being established. The Filipinos trusted the Americans to help them, and instead the Americans usurped rule.

Americans "pacified" (killed and tortured) and destroyed crops as they invaded the provinces. Then they established education and welfare in new towns where the ravaged people could relocate. Becoming so dependent on them, Filipinos were easy to forget that the Americans were the cause of their suffering. With less than a decade of Americanization and reeducation, Filipinos loved the new conquerors, loved everything about them, even to the very color of their skin. Woohoo.

Answer 2

If you mean the Spanish American war (since the Phillipines was a territory of Spain at the time), there are many:

By the late nineteenth century Spain was left with only a few scattered possessions in the Pacific Ocean, Africa, and the West Indies. Much of the Spanish Empire empire had gained its independence and a number of the areas still under Spanish control were clamoring to do so. Guerrilla forces were operating in the Philippines, and had been present in Cuba since before the 1868-1878 Ten Years' War. The Spanish government did not have the financial resources or the personnel to deal with these revolts and resorted to forcibly emptying the countryside and the filling of the cities with concentration camps (in Cuba) to separate the rebels from their rural base of support. Many hundreds of thousands of Cubans died of starvation and disease in these circumstances - 200,000 alone in the more peaceful western Cuba. The Spaniards also carried out many executions of suspected rebels and harshly treated suspected sympathizers. The war saw both Cuban rebels and Spanish troops burning and destroying infrastructure, crops, tools, livestock, and anything else that might aid the enemy. In 1895, a young Winston Churchill travelled to Cuba to witness the battles between the Spanish troops and Cuban rebels. Nevertheless, by 1897 the rebels had mostly defeated the Spanish. They were firmly in control of the eastern countryside and the Spanish could only leave urban centers in columns of considerable strength.

William Randolph Hearst's newspaper in New York documented the atrocities committed in Cuba. The civilian death toll was very high, and a real rebellion was being fought against Spanish rule. Public opinion in Cuba favored American intervention. Joseph Pulitzer was also a key in publicizing the war in New York City. His newspapers, along with Hearst's, exaggerated news of the atrocities in Cuba in an attempt to sway popular opinion in New York City in favor of intervention.[1] Fueled by the reports of inhumanity of the Spanish, a majority of Americans became convinced that an "intervention" was becoming necessary.

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Sinking of the USS Maine
On February 15, 1898, an explosion sank the American battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor with a loss of 266 men. Evidence as to the cause of the explosion was inconclusive and contradictory. It might have been an accident, or a Spanish mine or a Cuban mine. Although Hearst and Pulitzer published inflammatory articles in New York City, major papers elsewhere remained cautious. Americans remained unsure of the cause; most blamed the Spanish for not controlling their harbor.

There were, however, very real pressures pushing toward war within Cuba. Faced with defeat, a lack of money, and resources to continue fighting Spanish occupation, Cuban revolutionary and future president Tomás Estrada Palma, then Head of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta, offered $150 million dollars to purchase Cuba's independence, but Spain refused, as the money did not exist. The Cubans then deftly negotiated and propagandized their cause in the U.S. Congress.

Humanitarian interests dominated American opinion. President McKinley and House Speaker Thomas Reed worked hard to calm the mood, as did many Republicans, but the pressure from Democrats across the country steadily increased.

Spain could not back down without creating a crisis at home. Spain was on the verge of civil war and surrender to American demands would be politically dangerous. Much more acceptable to the Spanish was fighting a war (even though they expected to lose). That way the albatross of Cuba could be shed without civil war at home. The U.S. government had considered purchase of Cuba over the years but had always decided against making an offer. No major American leader proposed annexing the island because none thought Cuba could be assimilated into the American political system. Much of the island's export business and high technology was already in American hands, and most of Cuba's trade was with the U.S. Thus there was no economic need for acquisition of the island, and no major business interests proposed acquisition. Senator John M. Thurston from the farm state of Nebraska did argue that a war would bring more government spending so that, "War with Spain would increase the business and earnings of every American railroad, it would increase the output of every American factory, it would stimulate every branch of industry and domestic commerce." However most businessmen opposed war and supported McKinley, according to historians' analysis of the business press and statements by business leaders across the country.

The United States Navy had recently grown considerably and been reorganized, but it was still untested, and Navy leaders hoped war would help it prove itself. To this end, the U.S. Navy drew up contingency plans for attacking the Spanish in the Philippines over a year before hostilities broke out.

In Spain, the government was not entirely averse to war. The U.S. was an unproven power, while the Spanish Navy, however decrepit, had a glorious history, and it was thought it could be a match for the U.S. The DeLome Letter was an example of the doubts of Spain as to whether the U.S. was powerful enough to defeat them. There was also a widely held notion among Spain's aristocratic leaders that the United States' ethnically mixed army and navy could never survive under severe pressure.

Answer 3

fil-am war? what do u mean...u have to be more specific...or am i too sheltered that i dont know what's going on around me?