QUICK FAQS ON FILIPINO-AMERICAN WAR

Who was the U.S. President at the time and who or which groups wanted to occupy the Philippines?

William McKinley was U.S. president during the Spanish-American War and through the very early years of the Philippine-American War. He was assisinated in 1901. The Philippine-American War officially ended in 1902 during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency although the insurrection continued beyond that. I feel that it was McKinley who was ultimately responsible for the Philippine annexation into the U.S. since it was he who ordered the occupation of the Philippines. He also defended U.S. expansion and the new foreign policy of imperialism. In interviews with McKinley, he states that he was given no choice but to make the Philippines U.S. property. He obviously felt that he could not give the Philippines back to Spain. He also felt that he could not turn the Philippines over to Germany or France who were the American's commerical rivals in Asia (this answers the second part of your question). Lastly, he felt that the Filipinos were incapable of self-government ignoring his American Consul in Hong Kong, Rounseville Wildman, which wrote that the revolutionaries were "as capable of leading government departments in any country."

Did the Spaniards make the Filipinos into slaves, how were they treated?

Well, we know that early Spaniards did have Filipino slaves. Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who discovered the Philippines for Spain owned slaves. Enrique de Malacca was one of them. There was also the practice of slavery among minority groups, such as the Moro (Muslim) societies of the southern Philippines and animist groups in upland northern Luzon. And as with any slavery practice, all were treated very badly. As a side note, even today there is practiced of a form of slavery in the Philippines. "Visayan Forum Foundation estimates that a million girls under 18 in the Philippines work as maids. Some are as young as seven years old living and working away from their families, on call 24-hours a day, and unprotected in the house of their employers." This is present day Philippines...imagine what it would have been like living like a slave in those earlier days.

What can you tell us about the original Filipinos? Were they all aborigines, or were there different types of Filipinos since there are so many islands and were so isolated?

Our ancestors crossed over land bridges into the Philippines about 50,000 years ago. Our ancestors began as the Tabon and Neolithic people. The Tabon ate bats, birds and other small animals. They were food gatherers and did not hunt large game. The Neolithic people had stone tools and ornaments and basically had very different technology from the Tabon People. Eventually, our ancestors developed more elaborate tools which led to agriculture. Pottery developed leading to burial and other ceremonies. The metal age began around 800 B.C. helping to further their agriculture and eventually leading to the well-known rice terraces. Eventually, weaving was introduced leading to clothing and then wood working around 200 A.D. Then came the development of native music around 500 A.D. Around this same time period, the development of elaborate weapons using forged metals were developed. Remember the "Swords of Moroland" shield souvenir every Filipino household had?

Do you remember reading in the National Geographic in the late 70’s about how they found a primitive tribe in the Philippines? What do you know about that? Any photos, websites?

Yes, I remember. They were called the Tasaday people who lived basically undisturbed for centuries in the rain forest of South Cotabato Province on Mindanao. The Tasaday believed that their forest was the whole world and that they were the only people. They lived as cave dwellers, made primitive tools and had no means of agriculture. They basically lived a very ancient way of life that doesn't exist today...they were "cavemen." Then in the 1980's, a new group of anthropoligists and reporters revisited the Tasaday and declared the entire tribe a hoax. They were paid to dress up as cavemen and live in the caves. In actuality, they were living in huts near the caves and had the means of agriculture.

For those who want to believe, visit this site http://www.tasaday.com/

For those who are a bit more skeptical, visit this site http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A726653