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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
AMERICANS CAPTURE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS IN PHILIPPINES
In January 1901, American soldiers in Luzon, Philippines, captured an array of personal records belonging to Brig. Gen. Juan Cailles, the foreign-born governor and military leader of Laguna Province at the height of the Filipino insurrection. The document contents led to the arrest of numerous informants and sympathizers connected to Cailles’ activities across the province and to his surrender later that year.
The Spanish-American War was sparked by the Cuban War of Independence against Spain and the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898, giving the American government cause to intervene in the conflict. [See "This Week in MI History" #37 23 April 1898] At the end of the conflict, Cuba successfully gained independence, and Spain ceded the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam and sold the Philippines to the United States. Revolutionary activity was rampant in each of these territories, especially in the Philippines, where insurgents had been waging war against Spanish occupation since 1896.
Intelligence in the Philippines was sparse, and the U.S. Army was unprepared for the surprisingly well-organized insurgent networks supported and funded by local governments in the numerous provinces. In La Union Province, Lt. William T. Johnston discovered:
"Each and every pueblo had its designated detachment of armed insurrectos [sic], completely armed and officered for which it furnished quarters and subsistence and not a little pay. The Provincial and town officials and prominent people generally were aiding the insurrection almost openly. "
Quelling the revolutionary forces and returning the territory to civil government required extensive intelligence. U.S. Army reconnaissance units began operating immediately on Luzon, with many of their activities organized by Maj. Gen. Arthur MacArthur under the Division of Military Information (DMI) in December 1900. Capt. Ralph Van Deman oversaw most DMI activities. [See "This Week in MI History" #71 13 December 1900] Despite the new centralization of military intelligence, field intelligence was primarily secured at the lowest levels of regional military headquarters, and largely without input or support from the DMI. Through interrogations of couriers and guerrillas, intelligence officers worked to identify revolutionary leaders in each province, which led them to Brig. Gen. Juan Cailles.
Juan Cailles came from a well-off French-Indian household and was serving as a schoolteacher when he joined the revolutionary organization Katipunan, or “Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Sons of the Country,” at the beginning of the rebellion in 1896. Cailles rose to the rank of brigadier general as commander of one of the Katipunan militia units, and he supported Emilio Aguinaldo’s seizure of Manila in 1898. He was appointed governor of Laguna Province a year later, where he built up his provincial guard against the arriving U.S. Army. By 1900, Army intelligence had identified him as a major threat to American authority on Luzon, but the DMI failed to distribute information or photographs of him to its scattered intelligence agents.
This changed in January 1901, when American soldiers captured a large cache of Cailles’ personal papers containing the names of more than 560 known guerrillas and civilian supporters across Luzon. Finally recognizing the importance of the regional offices in maintaining its vast intelligence network, the DMI began openly recommending intelligence go through these offices rather than the DMI’s central location in Manila. In April, more seized documents belonging to Cailles revealed the names of prominent revolutionary leaders and their whereabouts across the provinces. With his civilian contacts and secret residences captured, Cailles surrendered in June 1901 and eventually helped the Americans end the revolution.
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| Date Taken: | 01.12.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 01.12.2024 13:25 |
| Story ID: | 461769 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 946 |
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