Manila

On April 25, 1898 the United States declared war on Spain following the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. As a result Spain ceded control over its colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the U.S. (In 1898, the U.S. also forcefully annexed Hawai’i, following the argument of President McKinley’s administrations that “we must have Hawai’i to help us get our share of China.”)

Filipino rebels, who had believed they were joined in a common struggle with the United States against Spain, discovered that the U.S. had betrayed them. Following the killing of three Filipino soldiers by U.S. forces in a suburb of Manila, these insurgents, led by newly declared Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo, then declared war on the United States. After two and a half years of guerrilla warfare against the United States, the war came to an end in July 1902, after U.S. forces captured Aguinaldo.

Although the Philippine Revolution was not victorious, the struggle inspired Chinese nationalists to understand the world in a new way, in which colonized peoples had to engage in a global, anti-colonial practice of politicization and revolution.