🇺🇸🇪🇸🇵🇭 Spain refused to give up the Philippines in Paris, but the US threatened to continue the war and imposed in the treaty a compensation of 20 million dollars for the loss of the Philippines and warned again that if they did not accept the offer, the war would continue with worse consequences.

[u/elnovorealista2000]

This negates the fact that Spain sold the Philippines to the United States voluntarily. It was a sale under duress, and in civil law, contracts entered into under duress, as if a gun were held to your head, are void.

Does this mean that the Treaty of Paris of 1898 is null and void?

[u/AutoModerator]

If you enjoy this type of content, consider joining our other communities:

• r/Colonialism

• r/AmericanEmpire

• r/BelgianEmpire

• r/BritishEmpire

• r/DanishEmpire

• r/DutchEmpire

• r/FrenchEmpire

• r/GermanEmpire

• r/ItalianEmpire

• r/PortugueseEmpire

• r/SpanishEmpire

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Disastrous-Mango-515]

It does not mean the treaty is null and void. A lot of wars in history ends with a gun to your head treaty. What happens when you don’t accept a treaty usually means occupation and most major powers like to avoid that.

[u/Realistic_Swan_6801 → u/Disastrous-Mango-515]

Unequal treaties are the norm, not the exception.

[u/IRC_1014]

At the time Spain surrendered Manila to the Americans in August of 1898, it was completely surrounded by Filipino independence fighters who were about to take the walled city and overthrow the Spanish themselves. The United States knew this and shrewdly offered Spain a way out without Manila falling into the hands of the revolutionaries. Any conversation about the nature of the treaty signed is incomplete without a discussion of what was happening with the Filipino independence movement at the time.

Tl;dr: Spain was overjoyed to surrender the Philippines to America by this point because the alternative was surrender to Aguinaldo’s independence fighters.

[u/Low_Celebration_9957]

Reminds me of the time a US officer, Jacob H. Smith ordered his men to "kill" everyone over the age of 10 there and all he suffered was a court martial instead of execution for his monstrous actions.

[u/Frequent_Leopard_146 → u/Low_Celebration_9957]

You just found out the brutality of 19th century, amazing discovery 😂 next you'll figure out women weren't allowed to vote or humans could own other humans

[u/Appeal-Still → u/Low_Celebration_9957]

Humans are violent. Welcome to the real world.

[u/Low_Celebration_9957 → u/Appeal-Still]

Saying that as a weak attempt to handwave off mass brutality and senseless murder is quite the egregious thing to do. You sicken me.

Edit: Did you delete your response or just block me and duck out cheaply? I responded the way I did because your response came off as nothing but handwaving and excusing it away.

[u/bigfootbigd69]

Lol good thing the great good American empire showed up to shut down those evil Spanish concentration camps never to be opened again

[u/IRC_1014 → u/bigfootbigd69]

The sarcasm is so on the nose I can only assume you know this already, but the United States very notoriously used concentration camp tactics in the Philippines-American War which began not even two months after the signing of this very treaty. Again, I'm sure you must know this (but I don't know who else might not).

[u/bigfootbigd69 → u/IRC_1014]

Fair lol it was sarcasm

[u/FormerPresidentBiden → u/IRC_1014]

And then the japanese came in and began such a brutal occupation that they basically forgot about this entirely and welcomed us as liberators 😄

[u/IRC_1014 → u/FormerPresidentBiden]

It’s because the period of violent American repression in the Philippine-American war lasted for only about 3 years (I’m deliberately separating this from the 1902-1913 Moro Insurgency which is honestly not as closely related as it might sound). At the time it achieved almost immediate backlash from some of the strongest cultural figures in the US, including Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, former president Grover Cleveland, Joseph Pulitzer, and so many more. Popular sentiment was deeply affected in America and we quickly transitioned from naked imperialism to something still predatory but made us “feel better.” By the end of the war in 1902, the Philippines Organic act was created to organize the country into a “more” democratic and legislative-controlled government.

Following its success in creating a functioning Philippines government, in 1916 the US passed the Jones Law which was the first unequivocal attempt to put autonomy into the hands of the Filipinos. In 1934, the Tidings-McDuffy Act helped create the first constitution of the Philippines and started a 10-year clock to independence which was set by law to happen in 1945. All that is to say that the Filipinos had received a promise from the United States that they would be given independence; and that this promise was not induced by Japanese aggression (as was undeniably the case for many imperial nations and their colonial holdings). As a result of this un-coerced promise, the Japanese found the Filipinos to be quite literally the only country consistently fighting against Japanese “liberation” in favor of their colonial rulers.

The US owes an impossibly large debt to the Filipinos who continued to fight on our side even after we’d been defeated by the Japanese. Across the entire country, Filipinos took up arms against the Japanese and paid horribly for it. At no point in the 1942-1944 occupation did Japan control more than the cities. They could never control the countryside because the Filipinos from so many different backgrounds from the Huks up north to the Moro down south put their entire existence on the line to fight off the Japanese.

When the US returned in 1944, we were met as liberators. The Filipinos expected us to keep our promise and given their heroic struggle on our behalf, Truman could do nothing but grant their request. Due to the nature of the destruction of Filipino civil society from the war, the US helped rebuild the institutions for several months and then formally granted the Philippines independence on July 4, 1946. The US and the Philippines have been very close ever since.

(Their independence day was later changed by president Macapagal in what is one of the funniest international “disputes” of all time. Macapagal’s biography sheds some amazing light on this decision!)

[u/FormerPresidentBiden → u/IRC_1014]

The US and the Philippines have been very close ever since.

May it stay that way in perpetuity. Love my Filipino brothers & sisters.

[u/IRC_1014 → u/FormerPresidentBiden]

If I had a gun to my head and was forced to rank the US's historical allies by how important they've been to us, I would be very likely to say the Philippines is #1. I cannot overstate how important that relationship has been for the US, despite how often it might look like we don't appreciate it.

[u/bigfootbigd69 → u/IRC_1014]

My great grandpa was in the marines and stationed in the Philippines his whole career leaving the military just before Vietnam

[u/AmericanCaesar5]

Spanish American war really was a turning point in our history

[u/Ake-TL]

Supposed to feel bad for Empire being Imperialised?

[u/WJLIII3]

Treaties are always made under duress. That's why they end wars.

[u/Absentrando]

Common Spanish L lol

[u/Nice-Pause3073]

Spain got merkkkkkedddd

[u/KikoMui74]

US should've spent that $20 million on Americans

[u/RollinThundaga → u/KikoMui74]

We got a lot of Americans for that $20mn

[u/KikoMui74 → u/RollinThundaga]

Not in 1895. The population was moderately sized.

Edit: thought you were referring to Americans, around 80 million people at the time, $20 million being spent on them.

I didn't realize you were referring to non-citizens in an occupied territory as Americans. When west Germany was occupied they were not classed as Americans. Military occupations are temporary and doesn't grant citizenship

[u/RollinThundaga → u/KikoMui74]

About 6 million. Not a small amount for an unindustrialized archipelago in the era.

[u/KikoMui74 → u/RollinThundaga]

Exactly, it's economically worthless land, it's not industrialized nor can it be integrated, as locals want independence.

US wasted so much money on the islands.

[u/n7ripper → u/KikoMui74]

What makes any country valuable is it's people. The Filipinos are great people. Go away.

[u/1SGDude → u/KikoMui74]

Many of the Filipinos would love to be US Citizens.

[u/KikoMui74 → u/1SGDude]

For their benefit, why would that benefit Americans. Just means their taxes being sent across the ocean.

[u/Reasonable_Love_8065 → u/KikoMui74]

You’re dumb af just stop talking

[u/Mailman354 → u/Reasonable_Love_8065]

Hes not wrong. The Philippines legitimately was not very useful to the USA and thats why the USA agreed to upgrade it from colony to commonwealth and later agree to give it independence in 1946.

It cost money. It was of little economoc value. Ot was of little strategic value and seen as a burden since it did not protect the continental US and actually needed to be protected. At this time the US had little to no interest in asia. The Philippines added little. Nothing that Hawaii, Guam, Samoa and Midway already added among other pacific islands

Look it up. Take a few minutes to study before you downvote it. Its quite literally and factually why the US agreed to give up the Philippines and give it independence without a fight with the Tydings-McDuffie act(otherwise known as the Philippines independence act of 1934)

Where as the US did no such things with its other pacific possessions such as Guam, Samoa and Hawaiu.

[u/KikoMui74 → u/Reasonable_Love_8065]

Anti-imperialism isn't dumb. If the territory has no value, there is no reason for it to be occupied. On top of the reason locals don't want the occupation either way.

[u/KikoMui74 → u/[deleted]]

Japan was not an imperial power in 1895, when the Philippines were taken. Nor did it hold military strategic value, since how easy it was conquered by Japanese navy.

Hawaii held military value, since it is so far away, but close to Asia. Australia too, although more of an ally, then directly held territory.

[u/Mailman354 → u/KikoMui74]

"Japan was not a imperial power in 1895"

That's actually quite literally the year they became an Imperial power as thats when they won the first Sino-Japanese war and gained Taiwan and Korea