---
title: '''Benevolent assimilation'':the Philippine-American War and the propaganda on every side'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/
description: Washington called its rule over the Philippines "benevolent assimilation", called the war that followed an "insurrection" and later made armed resistance…
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# 'Benevolent assimilation':the Philippine-American War and the propaganda on every side

At a glance

Washington called its rule over the Philippines "benevolent assimilation", called the war that followed an "insurrection" and later made armed resistance "brigandage" in law…

- **When:** December 21, 1898
- **Actor:** U.S. government, army command and pro-annexation press…
- **Target:** American voters and Congress…
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **Techniques:** [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

Full details

- **Actor:** U.S. government, army command and pro-annexation press; the Philippine Republic and its revolutionary press; the American Anti-Imperialist League and opposition press
- **Target:** American voters and Congress; Filipino civilians and combatants; U.S. soldiers, including African American troops

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation/#sources)

On this page

> **Content note.** This page shows period cartoons that draw Filipinos, Cubans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Black and Native Americans as racial caricatures, a 1902 cartoon of children before a firing squad, and an 1899 commercial stereograph of two dead Filipino soldiers. It quotes period racial language ("half devil and half child", "savage"). They are shown as published, as evidence of the method.

**In one line:** Washington called its rule over the Philippines "benevolent assimilation", called the war that followed an "insurrection" and later made armed resistance "brigandage" in law, while censoring the dispatches that described it; the Philippine Republic and the American Anti-Imperialist League answered with their own appeals to 1776, liberty and atrocity. Pro-annexation cartoons and some anti-imperialists alike drew on racial hierarchies.

![Diagram: a proclamation promising friendship is edited before release; the war is named an insurrection; censorship trims the dispatches; Filipino and anti-imperialist counter-appeals borrow American founding symbols; a 1902 Senate inquiry and cartoon set the record beside the words](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/philippine-american-war-benevolent-assimilation-diagram.svg)

## What happened

- **3 September 1898.** *La Independencia*, edited by Antonio Luna, publishes its first issue as a voice of the revolutionary government, with a dateline in Malabon although it was printed in Manila for security (Taylor 1927).
- **10 December 1898.** In the Treaty of Paris Spain cedes the Philippines to the United States. Kipling sends "The White Man's Burden" to Theodore Roosevelt; *McClure's* prints it in February 1899 subtitled "The United States and the Philippine Islands". Roosevelt passes it to Senator Lodge as "rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view."
- **21 December 1898.** President McKinley's instruction to the War Department says the U.S. comes "not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends", that its mission is "benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule", and that "the strong arm of authority" must be kept "to repress disturbance".
- **4-5 January 1899.** General Otis publishes a version with the references to U.S. sovereignty removed; the full text reaches the Filipino leadership through Iloilo. Aguinaldo's counter-proclamation says his government "cannot remain indifferent" to "such a violent and aggressive seizure" by a nation that "arrogated to itself the title of champion of oppressed nations" (Miller 1982).
- **25 January 1899.** *Puck* runs "School Begins": Uncle Sam teaches pupils labelled Philippines, Hawaii, Porto Rico and Cuba; the blackboard says the U.S. "must govern its new territories with or without their consent until they can govern themselves."
- **4 February 1899.** Fighting begins at Manila. U.S. official usage calls it the "Philippine Insurrection".
- **February-July 1899.** The Postmaster General orders Edward Atkinson's anti-imperialist pamphlets, mailed to soldiers, seized in the mails. On 9 July Manila correspondents present Otis with a protest charging that censorship kept from the American public "a knowledge of the real condition of affairs", not information from the enemy (press reports, July 1899).
- **September-October 1899.** "Aguinaldo's Case Against the United States", signed "A Filipino", appears in the *North American Review*; Aguinaldo's *True Version of the Philippine Revolution* is addressed to "the great North American Republic". The Anti-Imperialist League platform (18 October) calls subjugation "criminal aggression". Filipino forces post leaflets addressed to African American soldiers citing lynching at home (Kramer 2006).
- **28 September 1901 to 1902.** After about 48 U.S. soldiers are killed at Balangiga, Samar, General Jacob Smith orders Major Waller, by Waller's court-martial testimony, to kill and burn and to kill everyone over ten. Smith is convicted, admonished and retired. On 5 May 1902 the *New York Journal* prints Homer Davenport's "Kill Every One Over Ten".
- **17 February to June 1902.** Secretary of War Root says the war has been waged "with self-restraint, and with humanity never surpassed." The Senate Committee on the Philippines (chair Henry Cabot Lodge) hears soldiers describe the "water cure"; the hearings are printed as Senate Document 331.
- **4 July 1902.** Roosevelt proclaims "the insurrection ... now at an end", except in Moro areas. Philippine Commission laws of 1901-1907 punish advocating independence (Act 292), define armed bands as "brigands" (Act 518) and ban the Filipino flag (Act 1696).
- **1904.** The St. Louis World's Fair Philippine Reservation, 47 acres organized under the colonial government, puts over a thousand Filipinos on display; the daily Igorot dog feast is the most visited draw (Kramer 1999).
- **Deaths.** Over 4,200 U.S. and over 20,000 Filipino combatants died; "as many as 200,000" Filipino civilians died from violence, famine and disease (U.S. Office of the Historian). Gates (1984) puts war-related deaths from 1898 to 1903 between about 200,000 and 321,000, counting cholera. Francisco (1973) argues for up to 1,000,000. The civilian figure is contested.

## How it works

- [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/): "benevolent assimilation" for annexation over the stated objection of a declared republic; "insurrection" and "pacification" for a war against that republic's army; "brigandage" in law for armed resistance after 1902; "water cure" for a form of near-drowning.
- [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/): "mild sway of justice and right", "blessings of good and stable government" and "humanity never surpassed" stand in for testable claims. The Anti-Imperialist platform's "land of Washington and Lincoln" and "consent of the governed" do the same work for the other side.
- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): *Puck* and *Judge* drew the new territories as ragged, sullen children and savages; Kipling's "half devil and half child" made that a slogan. Aguinaldo's army appears as "insurgents" and "ladrones". The "Aguinaldo Guard" (*Puck*, 1900) casts named anti-imperialists as an honour guard for a foreign enemy. The League's "criminal aggression" answers with a loaded label of its own; the *Journal*'s "Criminals" caption turns Smith's order back on its author.
- [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): Otis's edited proclamation, the Manila censorship and the seizure of Atkinson's pamphlets controlled which facts reached the public. The 1904 fair showed a hired group of highland villagers in place of the lowland republic that had fought the war.
- [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/): every side borrowed American founding symbols. The *Judge* cartoon borrows Kipling's prestige; the Filipino appeals and the League invoke Washington, Lincoln and the Declaration; *Puck* mocks the "George Washington of the Philippines" banner; Davenport's cartoon puts a vulture on the U.S. shield.
- [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/): the leaflets to Black soldiers set the U.S. lynching record against service in the war. Some anti-imperialists, including labour leader Samuel Gompers and Senator Ben Tillman, warned that annexation would bring cheap labour and non-white migrants into the U.S., presenting the islands' people as a threat to American workers and to the nation's racial make-up (Lasch 1958).

## Then and now

![Address announcing a 'special military operation' (2022)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/special-military-operation-address-2022.jpg)

*[Address announcing a 'special military operation'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/special-military-operation-address-2022/), Presidential Executive Office of Russia, 2022. CC BY 4.0.*

In 2022 a state named a full-scale war a "special military operation", and its media regulator told outlets to drop the words "war" and "invasion". In 1899 Washington named a war against a declared republic an "insurrection", and its army censor trimmed the dispatches. The move is the same: the label decides in advance that the other side is not a lawful party. The differences are real. The 1899 censorship was military and local, American papers printed the correspondents' protest and the Senate held public hearings in 1902, while the 2022 rules were national criminal law. In the islands themselves, though, the Philippine Commission's laws of 1901-1907 made advocating independence (Act 292) and armed "brigandage" (Act 518) crimes. The 1899 label cast the war as a rebellion, on the ground that Spain had ceded the islands to the U.S. by treaty.

![School Begins, Puck, 25 January 1899](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/school-begins-puck-1899.jpg)

*["School Begins" (Puck, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/school-begins-puck-1899/), Louis Dalrymple, Puck, 25 January 1899. Public domain.*

![The White Man's Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling), Judge, 1 April 1899](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/white-mans-burden-judge-1899.jpg)

*["The White Man's Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling)" (Judge, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/white-mans-burden-judge-1899/), Victor Gillam, Judge, 1 April 1899. Public domain.*

![Kill Every One Over Ten, New York Evening Journal, 5 May 1902](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/kill-every-one-over-ten-1902.png)

*["Kill Every One Over Ten" (New York Evening Journal, 1902)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-every-one-over-ten-1902/), Homer Davenport, New York Evening Journal, 5 May 1902. Caption: "Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines." Public domain.*

![The Aguinaldo Guard, Puck, 17 October 1900](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/aguinaldo-guard-puck-1900.jpg)

*["The Aguinaldo Guard" (Puck, 1900)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/aguinaldo-guard-puck-1900/), J. S. Pughe, Puck, 17 October 1900: Bryan leads Schurz, Pulitzer, Godkin and others under a banner reading "The George Washington of the Philippines". Public domain.*

![A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo's Ambition, stereograph, 1899](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sacrifice-to-aguinaldos-ambition-1899.jpg)

*["A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo's Ambition" (commercial stereograph, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sacrifice-to-aguinaldos-ambition-1899/), Underwood & Underwood stereograph, 1899. The title assigns the deaths to the enemy leader. Public domain.*

## Positions on the record

- **U.S. government, as stated:** the islands were ceded by treaty; American rule would protect property, religion and rights and train Filipinos for self-government; the army's conduct was humane (McKinley 1898, Root 1902).
- **Philippine Republic, as stated:** independence had been declared on 12 June 1898 and a government formed; the U.S. had been an ally against Spain and then seized its territory (Aguinaldo, January and September 1899).
- **Anti-Imperialist League, as stated:** annexation broke the principle of consent and led to militarism. Some of its members opposed annexation on racial grounds, not only on principle (Lasch 1958; Welch 1979).
- **What is documented:** the proclamation and Otis's edit; the censorship protest; the Smith order in court-martial testimony and the sentence; water-cure testimony before the Senate; the Philippine Commission laws; the death estimates and their range. Linn (2000) and May (1991) also document guerrilla killings and intimidation of Filipinos who cooperated with the Americans; the sources used here give no total for those deaths.
- **What is not shown here:** the authenticity of the "Sandico order" of February 1899, which U.S. officials presented as a revolutionary plan to massacre foreigners in Manila, is disputed and is not relied on. This page does not rule on whether annexation or independence was right.

## Same-method test

A European power that issued a "benevolent" proclamation to a declared republic, named the war that followed a rebellion, censored its correspondents and made independence advocacy a crime would be scored the same way here. So would a liberation movement that sent leaflets citing lynchings to enemy soldiers, or an opposition that argued against annexation on racial grounds.

## How to spot it

- When an official word names a war ("insurrection", "pacification", "operation"), ask who else recognised the other side as a government, and when.
- Compare the proclamation as issued with the version the audience actually saw.
- In any cartoon, list who is drawn as a child, a savage or a hero, and who drew it.
- Check both the high and the low death estimate, and what each one counts.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mechanism diagram (above) | Drawn for FRAME from the page's sourced facts (`make_diagrams.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME |
| ["School Begins" (Puck, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/school-begins-puck-1899/), *Puck*, 25 Jan 1899 | FRAME gallery | Public domain (U.S. publication 1899) |
| ["The White Man's Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling)" (Judge, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/white-mans-burden-judge-1899/), *Judge*, 1 Apr 1899 | FRAME gallery | Public domain (U.S. publication 1899) |
| ["Kill Every One Over Ten" (New York Evening Journal, 1902)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-every-one-over-ten-1902/), *New York Evening Journal*, 5 May 1902 | FRAME gallery | Public domain (U.S. publication 1902) |
| ["The Aguinaldo Guard" (Puck, 1900)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/aguinaldo-guard-puck-1900/), *Puck*, 17 Oct 1900 | FRAME gallery | Public domain (U.S. publication 1900) |
| ["A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo's Ambition" (commercial stereograph, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sacrifice-to-aguinaldos-ambition-1899/), stereograph, 1899 | FRAME gallery | Public domain (U.S. publication 1899) |
| *Special military operation* address (2022) | FRAME gallery | CC BY 4.0 (kremlin.ru) |

### Image gaps

- **An issue of *La Independencia* and a printed Aguinaldo proclamation.** No public-domain scan was found on Commons or at the Library of Congress from this environment. Both are pre-1900 and public domain, so **this gap can be filled** from the Philippine National Library or the Taylor "Philippine Insurgent Records" microfilm.
- **A Filipino leaflet to African American soldiers.** Texts are quoted in secondary works; no image was found. **Fillable** if an archive scan turns up.
- **Anti-Imperialist League leaflets.** The Library of Congress holds "Save the Republic" leaflets (linked below) as text PDFs; a page image could be added. **Fillable.**
- **Senate Document 331 and the 1904 Philippine Reservation.** Library of Congress photographs of the Reservation exist (e.g. "The extremes meet: civilized and savage...", 1904) and are public domain. **Fillable**; left out to keep the page to its core artifacts.

## Sources

- Kramer, Paul A. *The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines.* Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. [Publisher page](https://uncpress.org/9780807856536/the-blood-of-government/)
- Kramer, Paul A. "Making Concessions: Race and Empire Revisited at the Philippine Exposition, St. Louis, 1901-1905." *Radical History Review* 73 (1999): 74-114.
- Miller, Stuart Creighton. *"Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903.* New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
- Welch, Richard E., Jr. *Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902.* Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
- Linn, Brian McAllister. *The Philippine War, 1899-1902.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. [Fulcrum](https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/jw827f02w)
- May, Glenn Anthony. *Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War.* New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. [JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt22726jb)
- Ileto, Reynaldo C. *Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910.* Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979.
- Gates, John M. "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines, 1898-1902." *Pacific Historical Review* 53, no. 3 (1984): 367-378. [UC Press](https://online.ucpress.edu/phr/article/53/3/367/77660/War-Related-Deaths-in-the-Philippines-1898-1902)
- Francisco, Luzviminda. "The First Vietnam: The U.S.-Philippine War of 1899." *Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars* 5, no. 4 (1973). [Taylor & Francis](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14672715.1973.10406345)
- Lasch, Christopher. "The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines, and the Inequality of Man." *Journal of Southern History* 24, no. 3 (1958): 319-331. [PDF copy](https://cooperative-individualism.org/lasch-christopher_the-anti-imperialists-1958-aug.pdf)
- U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. ["The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902"](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war) (casualty figures).
- McKinley, William. Executive order on the Philippines ("Benevolent Assimilation"), 21 December 1898. [Text (Philippine centennial reprint)](http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/mc981221.html); Otis's published version: [Letter from E. S. Otis to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, 4 January 1899](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_from_E.S._Otis_to_the_inhabitants_of_the_Philippine_Islands,_January_4,_1899).
- Kipling, Rudyard. "The White Man's Burden." *McClure's Magazine*, February 1899. [Text](https://www.saskoer.ca/victorianproseandpoetry/chapter/the-white-mans-burden-by-rudyard-kipling/)
- "Aguinaldo's Case Against the United States. By a Filipino." *North American Review* 169, no. 514 (September 1899): 425-432. [JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25104879)
- Aguinaldo, Emilio. *True Version of the Philippine Revolution.* Tarlac, 1899. [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12996)
- Taylor, Carson. *History of the Philippine Press.* Manila, 1927. [University of Michigan](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/philamer/acr6448.0001.001/37?page=root%3Bsize%3D100%3Bview%3Dtext)
- Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League, 18 October 1899. [Teaching American History](https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/platform-of-american-anti-imperialist-league/); ["Save the Republic" anti-imperialist leaflets, 1898-99 (Library of Congress)](https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.2390200h/?st=text)
- Edward Atkinson Papers. [Massachusetts Historical Society](https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0016)
- Correspondents' protest against the Manila censorship: [*The Fairfield News and Herald*, 26 July 1899](https://historicnewspapers.sc.edu/lccn/2012218613/1899-07-26/ed-1/seq-1/ocr); [*New-York Tribune*, 23 July 1899, p. 4](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1899-07-23/ed-1/seq-4/)
- U.S. Senate, Committee on the Philippines. *Affairs in the Philippine Islands: Hearings*, 31 January-28 June 1902. S. Doc. 331, 57th Cong., 1st sess. [HathiTrust record](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008883955)
- Storey, Moorfield, and Julian Codman. *Secretary Root's Record: "Marked Severities" in Philippine Warfare.* Boston, 1902 (quotes Root, 17 February 1902). [University of Michigan](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/philamer/AKL0070.0001.001/5)
- "The Waller/Day Court-Martial, 1902." [National Museum of the Marine Corps](https://www.usmcmuseum.com/uploads/6/0/3/6/60364049/5_the_waller_court-martial.pdf); "The 'Howling Wilderness' Courts-Martial of 1902." [DTIC](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA390585.pdf)
- Davenport, Homer. "Kill Every One Over Ten." *New York Evening Journal*, 5 May 1902. [Theodore Roosevelt Center record](https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o274576)
- War Department. *Massacre of foreign residents of Manila* (the "Sandico order"), S. Doc. 286, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902. [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2024774934/)
- Roosevelt, Theodore. Proclamation of amnesty, 4 July 1902. [Official Gazette of the Philippines](https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1902/07/04/proclamation-on-u-s-president-theodore-roosevelts-pardon-of-the-people-of-philippine-archipelago/)
- Philippine Commission, Act No. 518 (Brigandage Act), 12 November 1902. [Lawphil](https://lawphil.net/statutes/acts/act1902/act_518_1902.html); Act No. 1696 (Flag Law), 1907.
- Zócalo Public Square, "The 19th-Century African American Soldier Who Fought for Filipino Liberation." [Essay](https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/19th-century-african-american-solider-fought-filipino-liberation/) (Filipino leaflets to Black soldiers; David Fagen).