If asked to name atrocities carried out by the United States military, responses would most likely focus on Wounded Knee or the My Lai Massacre. Few would have knowledge of US military presence in the Philippines during the early 20th century, and fewer still would have heard of the Bud Dajo Massacre. Felix Debieux explains.

Americans soldiers fighting with Moros during the Moro Rebellion.

Sometimes euphemistically referred to as a “Battle”, the Bud Dajo Massacre was a counter-insurgency operation perpetrated by the US Army in 1906 against Filipino Muslims - known as the Moros - who had sought refuge at Bud Dajo, a volcanic crater on the island of Jojo. Despite the appalling death toll – as high as 1,000 Moros by some estimates – the Bud Dajo Massacre does not feature prominently in histories of the US military, US imperialism, or in popular understandings of US power projected abroad. How has such a dark episode been forgotten? And what does it tell us about the place of war crimes in our collective memory? Before that however, it is worth explaining what the US military was doing in the Philippines to begin with.

US in the Philippines

The Bud Dajo Massacre is best understood as part of the Philippine-American War. This was a conflict which erupted in 1898 when the US, which refused to recognise the Philippines’ declaration of independence from Spanish colonial rule, annexed the fledgling republic at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. For the Philippines, this represented the next phase in its struggle for independence. Having first contended with Spanish colonialism, it now had to deal with an American threat to its sovereignty. By 1901, President Emilio Aguinaldo was captured and the US declared the war officially over the following year. That, however, did not deter various Filipino factions from continuing the fight.

In areas of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, Palawan and Sabah, the US government sought to undermine resistance to its rule by signing the Kiram-Bates Treaty with the Sultanate of Sulu. Once resistance began to weaken, however, the US decided to tear up the treaty and proceeded to colonise Moro lands. In addition to the loss of territory, the Moros also endured what they saw as pressure to convert from Islam to Christianity, something they were all too familiar with from the days of Spanish rule. Ultimately, this stoked what came to be known as the Moro Rebellion, which began with the Battle of Bayang in May 1902 and ended with the Battle of Bud Bagsak in June 1913. It is against this backdrop of colonial warfare that the Bud Dajo Massacre can be situated. The question, however, is how did the conflict become so bloody?

Stoking rebellion

The massacre occurred during the tail end of General Leonard Wood’s term as Governor of the Moro Province, a period of upheaval for the region’s inhabitants. Major reforms included the abolition of slavery and the imposition of the cedula, a form of poll tax. The latter was very unpopular with the Moros, and was regarded as a form of tribute payable to their colonial masters. These reforms were layered on top of a widespread resentment of foreign Christian occupation. Tensions predictably boiled over, with heavy fighting and a refusal to pay taxes. When efforts to pacify the insurgents failed, the Moros dared to believe that the Americans lacked the strength to keep them in line.

It is in this volatile context that a rumour began to circulate among the Moros. The Americans were conspiring to exterminate them. Fearing the worst, several hundred Moros, including women and children, decided to relocate to Bud Dajo, where legend described the presence of spirits who would aid the Moros in their hour of need. Even without its supernatural defences, Bud Dajo represented a sound tactical choice for those seeking refuge. Indeed, the extinct volcano was around 2,100 feet tall, guarded by steep jungle-covered slopes, and only accessible by three narrow paths. Its well-stocked provisions didn’t harm the Moro’s chances either. One disputed aspect of the retreat is whether the Moros remained actively hostile to US forces. For Major Hugh Scott, the District Governor of Sulu Province, the answer was clear. Those who fled to the volcano “declared they had no intention of fighting, ran up there only in fright, and had some crops planted and desired to cultivate them”. Whatever the true intentions of the Moros, the subsequent conduct of the US military is difficult to comprehend.

The massacre

After the break down of negotiations between friendly chiefs and Bud Dajo’s occupants, a military campaign was launched by General Wood on 5th March 1906 with the aim of ending the standoff. As artillery shelled the volcano, a combined force of US and Philippine Constabulary troops under the command Colonel Joseph W. Duncan began hacking their way up the dense jungle slopes. While the initial attack proved ineffective, by 7th March the Moros were suffering heavy casualties. They were nevertheless able to offer limited resistance. Indeed, as Duncan’s troops pushed closer to the summit of the volcano, they were ambushed by Moros who had feigned death. This, however, was not enough to stop the US from taking control of Bud Dajo on 8th March.

With the outer rim secured, US forces spent the night heaving mountain guns up to the edge of Bud Dajo. At first light the blood bath began. The guns, positioned carefully to allow a sweeping arc of bullets to be rained down on Moro defences, opened fire. What exactly happened next is difficult to determine. One account suggests that the defenders retaliated, using a mixture of kalis, barung and homemade grenades improvised from black powder and seashells. Another claims that all Moros fortified in the crater perished. Without dwelling on the inconsistencies, all accounts concur that few, if any, Moros survived. The corpses piled five deep, with many of the bodies wounded multiple times. Where twenty-one Americans lost their lives, Moro casualties ran as high as 1,000. This figure includes women and children.

The public reaction

Bud Dajo was by any measure the bloodiest engagement of the Moro Rebellion. The carnage was not lost on General Wood, who took the executive decision to censor all telegrams describing the casualties. Back home, US authorities commended Wood for what they considered a significant victory on the battlefield. His friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, sent him a congratulatory telegram. He also received approval for his results from William Howard Taft, the Secretary of War. When the truth finally made its way into the news however, the US Army found itself embroiled in a public relations disaster.

On 11th March 1906, the New York Times ran with the headline:

“WOMEN AND CHILDREN KILLED IN MORO BATTLE; Mingled with Warriors and Fell in Hail of Shot. FOUR DAYS OF FIGHTING Nine Hundred Persons Killed or Wounded—President Wires Congratulations to the Troops”.

Mark Twain also condemned the massacre. "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle ... We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people”. Such coverage fuelled public cynicism about the role of the US in both the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War. The protracted conflict with the Moros was not common knowledge, and many were appalled to learn of the killings.

Faced with public outrage, Taft demanded that Wood account for the "wanton slaughter" of women and children. Wood tried to explain away the deaths, claiming that the women of Bud Dajo had dressed as men and joined the fighting, and that the men had used the children as human shields. This clumsy account conflicted with a different explanation given by the Governor-General of the Philippines, Henry Clay Ide, who said that the women and children were simply collateral damage caught up in the artillery barrages. Naturally, the contradictory accounts only inflamed anger and led to accusations of a cover up. Angrier still were the Moros, who were outraged not just at the treatment of their people but also the desecration of a sacred site. Anti-American sentiment only gave rise to further Moro resistance, which took the form of another Bud Dajo Campaign in 1911 and the Battle of Bud Bagsak in June 1913.

Legacy

How is it that our collective memory leaves such little room for war crimes? We could venture that growing nationalist sentiment, apparent today the world over, leaves us too proud to reckon with the darkest aspects of our past. Perhaps a shared sense of shame or guilt also plays a part? We could also point to attempts by the perpetrators of war crimes to control the story. History, after all, is written by the victors. Understanding this is key – not only because conflict rages today across the Ukraine, but also because we have a duty to seek justice for those who have been wronged. Where My Lai and Wounded Knee have become emblematic of US atrocities committed during the Indian Wars and Vietnam War, Bud Dajo has been largely forgotten. This is remarkable, since the death toll arguably makes Bud Dajo the biggest massacre in US military history. Indeed, ninety-nine percent of Moros were killed, a greater percentage than other incidents remembered for their cruelty.

One belligerent of the conflict which has not forgotten the massacre is the Philippines. In fact, the Bud Daju Massacre has been a feature of its more recent relations with the US. Back in 2016, President Duterte used the incident to criticise President Obama, resulting in the cancellation of a formal meeting. Even though Duterte apologised the next day, he referred to the incident again while calling for the exit of US soldiers from Mindanao. In a more extreme example, Duterte held aloft photographs of the brutalized corpses during a speech at the 2016 Metrobank Foundation. It is also worth highlighting the efforts of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a Muslim separatist movement based in the southern Philippines. In 2015, the MNLF published an open letter to President Obama demanding to know why the US was supporting Filipino colonialism against the Moro Muslim people, the Filipino "war of genocide", and atrocities against the Moros. The letter reminds the world that the Moros have long resisted atrocities perpetrated by Filipino, Japanese, American, and Spanish invaders. While the massacre may not be widely acknowledged in the US, it is clear that for at least some Filipinos the pursuit of justice remains unresolved.

What do you think of America and the Bud Dajo Massacre? Let us know below.

Now read Felix’s article on Henry Ford’s calamitous utopia in Brazil: Fordlandia Here.