Assistant Secretary for the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt

❖ had cabled Dewey to say "Your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave
the Asiatic coast ... start offensive operations in Philippine Islands."

Admiral Dewey
❖ emphasized that during the liberation of the islands the Filipinos had cooperated directly with
every American request, as if they were working with an ally and not a ruler. To quote the
admiral, "Up to the time the army came he (i.e. Aguinaldo) did everything I requested. He
was most obedient; whatever I told him to do he did. I saw him almost daily."

General Anderson
❖ The first American soldiers under General Anderson had landed in the Philippines in June
1898 as part of an expeditionary force sent by President William McKinley to secure the
archipelago for the United States.

General Bell issued Circular Order No. 3

❖ to all American commanders in the field

Clarence Clowe

❖ described the situation as follows in a letter he wrote to Senator Hoar. The methods
employed by American troops against civilians in an effort to find insurgent "arms and
ammunition" include torture, beating, and outright killing.

❖ bind/tying and gag helpless prisoners

❖ to strike them in the face
❖ to knock them down when so bound,
❖ to bear them away from wife and children, at their very door, who are shrieking pitifully
❖ kneeling and kissing the hands of our officers
 ❖ with a crowd of soldiers, hold our helpless victim head downward in a tub of water in his
own yard,
❖ or bind him hand and foot,
❖ attaching ropes to head and feet, and then
❖ lowering him into the depths of a well of water till life is well-nigh choked out
❖ trying to obtain information as to the location of arms and ammunition.

Another soldier, L. F. Adams

❖ 1,008 dead niggers, and a great many wounded.

❖ We burned all their houses. I don't know how many men, women, and children the Tennessee
boys did kill. They would not take any prisoners.

General Jacob H. Smith

❖ Samar Province
❖ A howling wilderness
❖ Balangiga Massacre
❖ Order Major Littleton Waller - I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn: the more you
kill and burn, the better you will please me
❖ he wanted all persons killed who were capable of bearing arms and in actual hostilities
against the United States, and did, in reply to a question by Major Waller asking for an age
limit, designate the limit as ten years of age. ... General Smith did give instructions to Major
Waller to 'kill and burn' and 'make Samar a howling wilderness,' and he admits that he
wanted everybody killed capable of bearing arms, and that he did specify all over ten years of
age, as the Samar boys of that age were equally as dangerous as their elders."

❖ Major Waller men - over 11 days his men burned 255 dwellings and killed 39 people