Although the fighting with Spain in the Philippines had ended in August 1898, American troops found themselves with more battles to fight there in oder to assert U.S. dominance over the region. The fighting with Filipino rebels began as a result of the U.S. refusal to include the Filipino nationalists in negotiations over the future of the Philippines. The Philippines were ceded to the United States by Spain for $20 million by the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898. On December 21,1898, President McKinley issued the Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, which outlined his coloniaing policies in the Philippines. In response, the Philippine Republic was declared on on January 1 with Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy as its President, but the United States refused to recognize it as the legitimate government. in reaction to this non-recognition, the Filipino government proclaimed its constitution on January 27, 1899. By February 4, the Philippine Republic had declared war on the United States after three Filipino soldiers were killed by U.S. troops. Aguinaldo was eventually captured by American troops on March 23, 1901. -memory.loc.gov
Emilio Aguinaldo agreed to hold a peace conference between Filipino and American leaders. The conference lasted from January 9 to 29 in 1899. It ended without definite results, because the Americans were actually just bidding time, waiting for more reinforcements to arrive from the U.S. Hostilities finally exploded between the Filipinos and Americans on February 4, 1899 in San Juan. General Antonio Luna and his men showed great heroism when they attacked Manila on the night of February 24, 1899. General Arthur MacArthu Jr, marched to Malolos, which was then the capital of the Philippine Republic. Malolos was taken on March 31, 1899. A significant event that greatly weakened Aguinaldo's forces was the death of General Antonio Luna, acknowledged as the best and most brilliant military strategist of the Philippine Revolution. In June 1899 Luna was at his command post in Bayambang, Pangasinan when he recieved a telegram allegedly sent by Aguinaldo. The telegram instructed him to proceed to Aguinaldo's headquarters in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. On June 5, Luna arrived at the headquarters, a convent on the town plaza in Cabanatuan, but was told that Aguinaldo left for Tarlac. Angry, Luna went out of the convent and was met and killed by Captain Pedro Janolino with Kawit, Cavite troops. On November 13, 1899, General Emilio Aguinaldo fled to Calasiao, Pangasinan with his wife, son, mother, sister, and some Cabinet members. On December 25, 1899, he surrendered. On the night of March 6, 1901, he boarded the American warship Vicksburg and docked at Casiguran Bay on March 14. From Palanan Funston group reached Aguinaldo's headquarters in Palanan on March 23, 1901. On April 19, 1901, he finally pledged allegiance to the United States. The first to yield to the Americans was by General Simion Ola. He surrendered to Colonel Harry Bandoltz in Guinobatan Albay on September 25, 1903. Other revolutionaries soon followed. -Philippine-history.org
Fighting broke out on February 4, 1899, and eventually far exceeded that against Spain. American troops strength increases until 1901 when it numbered 75,000. After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. The Philippine-American War lasted three years and resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease. American opposition to U.S. colonial rule of the Philippines came in many forms, ranging from those who feared that annexation might eventually permit the non-white Filipinos to have a role in American national government. After the Spanish-American War, while the American public and politicians debated the annexation question, Filipino revolutionaries under Aguinaldo seized control of most of the Philippines' main island of Luzon and proclaimed the establishment of the independent Philippine Republic. Americans tended to refer to the ensuing conflict as an "insurrection" rather than acknowledge the Filipinos' contention that they were fighting to ward off a foreign invader. There were two phases to the Philippine-American War. The first phase, from February to November of 1899, was dominated by Aguinaldo's ill-fated attempts to fight a conventional war against the better-trained and equipped American troops. The second phase was marked by the Filipinos' shift to guerrilla-style wardare. It began in November of 1899, lasted through the capture of Aguinaldo in 1901 and into the spring of 1902, by which time most organized Filipino resistence haad dissipated. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed a general amnesty and declared the conflict over on July 4, 1902, although minor uprisings and insurrections against American rule periodically occurred in the years that followed. Many civilians died during the conflict as a result of the fighting, cholera and malaria epidemics, and food shortages caused by several agricultural catastrophes. In 2907, the Philippines convened its first elected assembly, and in 1916, the Jones Act promised the nation eventual independence. The archipelago became an autonomous commonwealth in 1935, and the U.S. granted independence in 1946.