February 1958 | Volume 9, Issue 2 Today few remember the names
of Funston or Aguinaldo; for that matter, the Philippine
Insurrection and America’s brief flirtation with imperialism at
the turn of the century are all but forgotten. Yet the era is
not without significance, because these were the years when, for
the first time in its history, the United States extended its
territorial jurisdiction beyond the limits of continental North
America—and in the process became a world power. Very soon after
the brief war with Spain ended in the summer of 1898, the United
States suddenly found itself with its first colonial problem.
The Filipinos had expected independence, and when instead the
islands were annexed by the United States, many of their
“liberated” people, far from welcoming American rule, soon came
to dislike the new masters as much as the old ones. Unlike some
Americans, they did not view annexation as an act of humanity
toward an ignorant, downtrodden, and backward people; and on
February 4, 1899, two day