The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida
by Victor Nebrida and PHGLA
All rights reserved
The Philippine-American War started on February 4, 1899 and was officially proclaimed by President Roosevelt to have ended on July 4, 1902. Although General Aguinaldo was captured on March 25, 1901, there followed no mass surrender of other Filipino revolutionary generals. Fighting went on in Batangas, Pampanga, Tarlac, the Ilocos, and the Visayas. In Samar, General Lukban 's control had been set and was holding firm.
Kill everyone over ten.
"Kill every one over ten." - Gen. Jacob H. Smith
Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines.
Editorial cartoon from the New York Evening Journal, May 5, 1902.
Company C, Ninth U.S. Infantry sailed into Balangiga on August 11, 1901. Company C consisted of seventy-four veterans, most of whom had seen service not only in China but also in Cuba and Northern Luzon. It was led by Captain Thomas Connell and his second in command, Lt. E. C. Bumpus. This was in response to the town mayor 's petition for an American garrison to protect the town from Muslim and rebel raids. The townsfolk needed relief and the policy of benevolent assimilation had apparently come to Balangiga.
For weeks, the outfit engaged in routine duties including the cleanup of garbage by a hundred male conscripts. Later, eighty additional natives from the nearby hills were added to the work force on recommendation of the town mayor. The Americans found them unusually industrious but they happened to be Lukban 's best bolomen.
Then the Balangiga Massacre happened. This is how Joseph Schott describes it in his book, The Ordeal of Samar:
On the night of September 27, the American sentries on the guard posts were surprised by the unusual number of women hurrying to church. They were all heavily clothed, which was unusual, and many carried small coffins. A sergeant, vaguely suspicious, stopped one woman and pried open her coffin with his bayonet. Inside he found the
All rights reserved
The Philippine-American War started on February 4, 1899 and was officially proclaimed by President Roosevelt to have ended on July 4, 1902. Although General Aguinaldo was captured on March 25, 1901, there followed no mass surrender of other Filipino revolutionary generals. Fighting went on in Batangas, Pampanga, Tarlac, the Ilocos, and the Visayas. In Samar, General Lukban 's control had been set and was holding firm.
Kill everyone over ten.
"Kill every one over ten." - Gen. Jacob H. Smith
Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines.
Editorial cartoon from the New York Evening Journal, May 5, 1902.
Company C, Ninth U.S. Infantry sailed into Balangiga on August 11, 1901. Company C consisted of seventy-four veterans, most of whom had seen service not only in China but also in Cuba and Northern Luzon. It was led by Captain Thomas Connell and his second in command, Lt. E. C. Bumpus. This was in response to the town mayor 's petition for an American garrison to protect the town from Muslim and rebel raids. The townsfolk needed relief and the policy of benevolent assimilation had apparently come to Balangiga.
For weeks, the outfit engaged in routine duties including the cleanup of garbage by a hundred male conscripts. Later, eighty additional natives from the nearby hills were added to the work force on recommendation of the town mayor. The Americans found them unusually industrious but they happened to be Lukban 's best bolomen.
Then the Balangiga Massacre happened. This is how Joseph Schott describes it in his book, The Ordeal of Samar:
On the night of September 27, the American sentries on the guard posts were surprised by the unusual number of women hurrying to church. They were all heavily clothed, which was unusual, and many carried small coffins. A sergeant, vaguely suspicious, stopped one woman and pried open her coffin with his bayonet. Inside he found the