Santomenna TAH: a More Perfect Union- Year III Peter Gibbon 9/27/2012

Dustin Santomenna TAH: A More Perfect Union- Year III Peter Gibbon 9/27/2012 History Lessons from the Moro War President McKinley never anticipated that the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine would force America to become a colonial power in the Far East, and subsequently lead to America’s longest war. When Commodore George Dewey’s steamers defeated Spanish Admiral Patricio Motojo y Pasaron’s wooden ships, the Philippines were opened up for American occupation. While the American’s battled a Filipino insurgency led by the likes of Emilio Aguinaldo in the northern islands, it sent a detachment to the southern Philippines, referred to as the Mindanao. Mindanao was very different from the other Filipino regions in the north (Luzon) and central (Visayas) areas. Three quarters of the people of the Mindanao were Muslim, while the remainder were relocated Christian Filipinos from the north, Chinese merchants, and animistic tribal people so far removed from civilization that even Islam could not penetrate the volcanic craters and dense rain forest to reach them. Mindanao’s Muslims, referred to as the Moros presented the greatest challenge for American occupation and “civilization” attempts in the Philippines. In his book, titled , The Moro War: How America Battled a Muslim Insurgency in the Philippine Jungle, 1902-1913, military historian James R. Arnold describes how Moro resistance to American occupation posed “an unprecedented challenge for the America army: how to defeat an Islamic insurgency on its home soil” (Arnold, 14). Though the topic and subject matter of his book certainly has relevance today; namely the United States’ efforts to bring peace, civilization, and democracy to a foreign land comprised of Islamic tribal peoples echoes the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Arnold largely refrains from doing so. This book is certainly filled with teachable moments and lessons of history that are relevant for the United States’ foreign policy from the Cold War and into the 21st century, but those connections have to be made by the reader. In the last chapter of his book, Arnold gives brief attention to the similarity of the United States fighting foreign wars in Vietnam and the War on Terror that helps place the Moro Wars into better context. He writes, “The history of counterinsurgency shows the vital role of national commitment to achieve victory” (254). Arnold uses an example from the Vietnam War to illustrate this point and compare it to all wars in which the U.S. occupies a foreign land. He cites from an American general who was touring a newly pacified Vietnamese hamlet, and was asked by a Vietnamese government official, “All of this has meaning only if you are going to stay. Are you going to stay?” (254). Despite this connection and comparison to Vietnam, Arnold spends the majority of his book describing the eleven year struggle to pacify Moroland during the Moro Wars, and it is apparent his intention was never to do a comparative study between the Moro Wars and the Vietnam and Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, in the conclusion he identifies that there are valuable lessons learned from the Moro Wars that rang true during the Vietnam War as well as currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is largely left up to the reader to connect Arnold’s lessons on American occupations of foreign lands with each other, but these lessons are vividly clear in his graphic description of the warfare in the Moro Wars and America’s pacification efforts there. Arnold reminds the reader of the relevance and impact of a truly forgotten about war in America’s military and diplomatic Santomenna, Dustin. 2 history. The timing and publishing of his book could not have come at a better time as well, making the connections and lessons all the more pertinent. The Moros and Moroland: A large part of what makes this book so interesting arethe descriptions of the Moro peoples living in the Mindanao, the southernmost archipelagArnold writes at great length to try to identify a people and culture that was so foreign and seemingly antiquated from the American occupiers. The Moro province, referred to as Mindanao was named after the largest island in the archipelago, but contained other large islands such as Palawan and Basilan, as well as 369 smaller islands of the Sulu Archipelago. In ancient times Asian trading vessels from China, Indonesia, India, and Thailand engaged in trade with some of these islands, in particular the main port of Jolo became a major trading center. In addition, Arab merchants brought Sunni Islam to the area between 800 and 1000CE. Arnold points out that Islam was really the only unifying bond between the dozen or more cultural and linguistic groups in the Philippines (4). Though Arnold points that very few Moros and datus (the term for a noble-man) practiced true fundamentalist Islam, there was little separation between church and state. He writes, “With the exception of few traditional customs, all Moro laws were in accordance with Islamic law, or sharia” (4). Certain odd practices shocked and disgusted many of the American soldiers stationed there, such as their practice of polygamy and slavery. Arnold writes, “In American eyes, Moro civil customs and behavior seemed to come from feudal times. Moro chieftains practiced slavery, piracy, and polygamy while pursuing blood feuds and engaging in frequent war. These behaviors contributed to the American notion that the Moros were uncivilized and beyond redemption” (122). Moro society was organized in a clan or tribal basis. A region’s datu exerted patriarchal control of all the Moros in his area. Minor datus were subservient to major datus, and major datus subservient to Sultans. Underneath the datus were a class of free people, and at the bottom were slaves. Feudalism still existed here, and the Moros desired to protect this system from first the Spanish infidels, who they felt were trying to change their religion and convert them to Christianity (in the northern Philippines this was largely successful) and the American infidels who brought their “American laws and secular government”. Arnold writes, “the American notion of a regulated liberty was a hopelessly irrelevant, unknown, and unknowable concept to the Moros: ‘It is a proud boast of the Mussulman [Muslim] that a people who live in accordance with the teachings of the prophet [the Koran] have no need for other codes, constitutions, charters, and bills of rights…’” (Arnold, 15). According to most Moros, adopting American laws meant that the laws of the Koran were not good enough. Moreover, Moro culture was very different as well to any opponent the U.S. army had ever dealt with before. True they were a tribal people and not very united, much like the American Indian tribes on the Great Plains, often fighting amongst themselves rather than against their foreign occupiers, but they possessed a far different belief system than the Native Americans. After reading Arnolds’ description of the Moros, it should not be politically incorrect to consider them a “war-like” people. Arnold describes some of their favorite activities, “Of course many of the pursuits of the Moros considered lawful and normal-slavery, piracy, cattle theft from one’s ancestral foes- the Americans judged as crimes” (41). To further explain the Moro warrior culture, Arnold describes their connection to their razor sharp blades and swords, “Every male adult Santomenna, Dustin. 3 past the age of childhood wore a blade. To appear unarmed in public was a sign of disgrace or indicated that one was a slave” (46). Moros were deadly with their bladed weapons and trained how to use them at an early age. The relationship that Moros had with their weapons was certainly strange to Americans; a similar comparison can be drawn to the relationship a Samurai has with his sword. One of the bloodiest periods of this war occurred ironically near the end of the combat in Moroland in 1912 and 1913 when newly anointed brigadier general, John Pershing, returned to Moroland after a six year hiatus as the new military governor of the Moro Province. On September 8th, 1911 Pershing issued an executive order making it illegal for Moros to carry firearms and/or edged weapons over fifteen inches long. Previous governors Leonard Wood and Tasker Bliss toyed with the idea of doing this, but figured correctly it would inevitably lead to more conflict and violence. It did. Arnold writes, “Pershing proposed to change centuries of culture in a mere three months” (224). Relying on Filipino Scouts and a Filipino/Moro Constabulary to largely enforce this rule led to many conflicts. Arnold writes, “The constabulary received orders to seize every barong, kris, and kampilan they encountered during the course of a patrol. It proved bloody work. For hundreds of years the possession of an edged weapon had been a Moro symbol of manhood. The Moros could not help seeing Pershing’s disarmament policy as a coordinated policy to unman them” (241). In addition, many Moros preferred to die rather than surrender their blades. When encountered by a U.S. soldier and later the Filipino constabularies, it was not uncommon for a Moro to charge them in order to die, “Being a Moro, he preferred to die on a blade” (242). The Moro concept of death rather than surrender may remind historians of the Japanese bonsai charges and kamikaze attacks during World War II. The Moros with their edged weapons, spears, outdated Spanish firearms, and whatever stolen rifles they could find was no match in big-pitched battles against the U.S. army, and most of the Moros already knew this. However, when faced with the choice of annihilation or surrender, most Moros choose to die.

Load more