Battle for Batangas. A Philippine Province at War

Batangas played a central role in the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, America’s first Asian war: a fascinating account of what life was like for the soldiers and civilians in Batangas.. Challenging established scholarship, it also shows that the backbone of Philippine resistance was the political and economic elites rather than the peasantry. Using not only official records but also diaries, letters, and reminiscences, May gives us a revealing view of the U.S. soldiers who occupied the province, the guerrillas who opposed them, and the noncombatants who interacted daily with both armies. He demonstrates that in this war, as in the earlier Philippine revolution of 1896 against Spanish rule, the war effort was fueled and directed by elite Batnagueños, who provided money, food, and other assistance to the Filipino fighting men. He considers the effects of old-boy networks, family connections, patron-client bonds, municipal politics, and religious beliefs on the local resistance activities. Reevaluating the behavior of the Americans in the war, he argues that it was neither as unpleasant nor as praiseworthy as it has thus far been portrayed. Although the Americans were guilty of atrocities and lesser abuses, says May, most American troops had relatively civil relations with the Filipino population, and the massive depopulation of Batangas was due as much to pre-existing epidemiological conditions as to the policies of the American army of occupation.