Mark Twain comments on the slaughter by the American Military of some savages in the Phillipines

http://www.is.wayne.edu/MNISSANI/cr/Moro.htm

The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.

The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private's name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned - by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word.



.....The next heading blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:

"Death List is Now 900."

I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now!

Twain was a good man evidently fighting the MIC even then.

He was a man of great common sense. It's nice to know there were some Americans, even back then, that were not so enamored of our military conquest over peace loving peoples.

I went to visit his home in Hannibal, Missouri last year and it's still there like it was when he grew up. The town hasn't changed much in all this time, and we went into the caves where young Sam Clemons played when he was a child. We were able to see where Injun Joe supposedly died and where young Tom first kissed Becky Thatcher . It's a great place to visit if anyone is ever in that area. Twain based his characters on people he knew as a child(names changed of course) and their homes are still there today.

Here's some background -- I'm more than two hundred pages in on a biography of a black "Buffalo Soldier" who fought as a US soldier in Cuba against Spanish forces, and later was sent with his outfit (24th Regiment of Infantry USCT -- U.S. Colored Troops) to fight in the Philippines. Accordingly, over the last two years I've read dozens of books, manuscripts, jou8rnals, short stories, newspaper articles etc. on the conduct of that war.

The incident you reported took place after some 40 plus white US troops were slaughtered at their base by sword wielding Moro fighters who resented being occupied and exploited by the US. The massacre you mention was a retaliatory effort and involved helpless men, women and children trapped inside a dormant volcano mouth. Our troops mounted machine guns and rapid firing mountain cannons and were ordered to open fire and kill everyone.

Prior to the massacre, an American commander ordered the troops to kill every male who could carry a gun. A junior officers inquired from what age up? Ten, his commander replied. There are photos and drawings of children standing blindfolded on a bridge and being shot off the bridge railing by soldiers fighting for liberty, freedom, justice and the American way. Mark Twain was one of the early leaders of the anti-Philippine war movement -- which was led by Presidential William Jennings Bryan, and other notables, including Andrew Carnegie.

Seeking to possess the Philippine islands and colonize them for fun and profit and to satisfy manifest destiny (it was the "white man's burden" to "civilize and Christianize the Philippine people who were savages (the war was known popularly as "Our Nigger War in the Philippines". During the early years of the war and occupation, some 250,000 innocent Filipino civilians were murdered. McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt wanted to achieve a pacific base to project American military presence in the western Pacific. They also hoped to use Philippine stations to coal American ships seeking trade with China.

The people we murdered were people who had fought and almost won their independence from Spanish colonialists. They considered us, correctly, as another white modern nation seeking to dictate their lives and steal their resources.

Our efforts to "secure" the Philippines against people who were willing to die for their independence set the stage for our political and military efforts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We never learn.

Screw Amerika Inc.

Thanks for fleshing out the story. The more I read of our history the less I like us.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Thanks for fleshing out the story. The more I read of our history the less I like us.

Our history is not as glorious as what we were taught in school.
That's for sure.

Samuel Clemens and Smedley Butler were alive at the same time.