Moro Rebellion - Background

Background

The United States claimed the territories of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The Muslim population of the southern Philippines resisted both Spanish and United States colonization. The Spaniards were restricted to a handful of coastal garrisons and they made occasional punitive expeditions into the region. After a series of unsuccessful attempts during the centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines, Spanish forces occupied the city of Jolo, the seat of the Sultan of Sulu, in 1876. The Spaniards and the Sultan of Sulu signed the Spanish Treaty of Peace on July 22, 1878. Control of the Sulu archipelago outside of the Spanish garrisons was handed to the Sultan. The treaty had translation errors: According to the Spanish language version, Spain had complete sovereignty over the Sulu archipelago, while the Tausug version described a protectorate instead of an outright dependency. Despite this suspect claim to the Moro territories, Spain ceded them to the United States in the Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish-American War. Following the American occupation of the northern Philippines during 1899, Spanish forces in the southern Philippines were abolished, and they retreated to the garrisons at Zamboanga and Jolo. American forces took control over the Spanish government in Jolo on May 18, 1899, and at Zamboanga in December 1899.

Brigadier General John C. Bates was sent to negotiate a treaty with the Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II. Kiram was disappointed by the hand-over of control to the Americans and had expected to regain sovereignty over his territory after the defeat of the Spanish. Bates' main goal was to guarantee Moro neutrality in the Philippine-American War, and to establish order in the southern Philippines. After some negotiation, the Bates Treaty was signed. This treaty was based on the earlier Spanish treaty, and it retained the translation error: the English version described a complete dependency, while the Tausug version described a protectorate. Although the Bates Treaty granted more powers to the Americans than the original Spanish treaty, the treaty was still criticized in America for granting too much autonomy to the Sultan. One particular clause, which recognized the Moro practice of slavery, also raised eyebrows in Washington, D.C. Bates later admitted that the treaty was merely a stop-gap measure, signed only to buy time until the war in the north was ended and more forces could be brought to bear in the south.

In signing the treaty, Bates was not aware of a complicating factor: the nominal nature of the Sultan's authority. In theory, the Sultan of Sulu was the supreme authority in Moroland. The Sultanate of Maguindanao was independent and autonomous but recognized the supremacy of Sulu in religious and international matters. In reality, the Sultan of Sulu had less power than any of the major datus of the Sulu, and datus who had not been included in the treaty negotiations felt slighted and resisted recognition of the treaty. Matters were even worse on Mindanao. The Lake Lanao district was divided between more than 200 feuding datus, while the Cotabato area (the watershed of the Rio Grande de Mindanao) was under the loose overlordship of Datu Ali. In addition to the two true Sultans, there were some 32 self-proclaimed Sultans who laid claim to the title on the basis of controlling more territory than a normal datu.

The Bates Treaty did establish Moro neutrality in the Philippine-American War, and allowed the Americans to establish a few outposts in Moroland. American forces were organized into the military District of Mindanao-Jolo, under the command of General Bates. His forces were spread thin: there were only 2 infantry regiments in the entirety of Mindanao, giving the Americans only enough strength to control the District headquarters at Zamboanga and its surrounding peninsula. On March 20, 1900, General Bates was replaced by Brigadier General William A. Kobbe, and the District of Mindanao-Jolo was upgraded to a full Department. American forces in Mindanao were reinforced with a third infantry regiment. Garrisons were established at Jolo and thirteen other coastal towns throughout the Sulus, and stations were established at various places on the coast of Mindanao. During the winter of 1900-01, Moro hostility lessened, and Filipino forces in Moroland were driven into the hills. Trade revived, but so did slave raiding and piracy. Bandits attacked isolated American posts, and soldiers that went astray in the jungles faced attacks from juramentados.

Filipino Insurrectionist forces in the southern Philippines were commanded by General Capistrano, and American forces conducted an expedition against him in the winter of 1900–1901. On March 27, 1901, Capistrano surrendered. A few days later, General Emilio Aguinaldo surrendered in Luzon. This major victory in the war in the north allowed the Americans to devote more resources to the south, and they began to push into the interior of Moroland.

On August 31, 1901, Brig. Gen. George Whitefield Davis replaced Kobbe as the commander of the Department of Mindanao-Jolo. Davis adopted a conciliatory policy towards the Moros. American forces under his command had standing orders to buy Moro produce when possible and to have "heralds of amity" precede all scouting expeditions. Peaceful Moros would not be disarmed. Polite reminders of the America's anti-slavery policy were allowed.

One of Davis' subordinates, Captain John J. Pershing, assigned to the American garrison at Iligan, set out to better relations with the Moros of the Maranao tribes on the northern shore of Lake Lanao. He successfully established friendly relations with Amai-Manabilang, the retired Sultan of Madaya. Although retired, Manibilang was the single most influential personage among the fragmented inhabitants of the northern shore of the lake. His alliance did much to secure American standing in the area.