Annexed Philippines Dbq

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In 1899, the United States annexed the Philippines after a short but bloody war with Spain. These rich, plentiful islands full of resources were in great demand. The U.S. saw the Philippines; fighting against Spain so like them when they were rebelling, and decided to step in and aid ‘the spirit of 1776’ (Doc. A). However, the question still remains: should the United States have annexed the Philippines? The answer is an emphatic no. It was a waste of money and resources, they were as cruel and inflexible as Spain in their opinion of how to treat the natives, and it went against all governmental beliefs the U.S. stood for. Annexing the Philippines was not a wise decision.
Although the idea seemed great at the time, annexing the Philippines was a major waste …show more content…

According to Abraham Lincoln: “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government- that is despotism.” (Doc. A) He was referring to the white man’s tendency to treat people with different skin colors as inferiors, which certainly happened in the Philippines. As Albert J. Beveridge pointed out in Document B, “would not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, human, civilizing government of this republic to the savage, bloody rule… from which we have saved them?” Just, human, civilizing? Strict, biased, Christianizing was more like it. In these islands, the United States of America once again made the same mistake it had made with the Native Americans. Determined that there way was the best way, ‘the slaughter of the Filipinos’ (Doc. A) commenced. Less Filipinos died in the three hundred and thirty-three year Spanish rule than the 1.5 million that fell under America’s forty-eight year annexation. It would have been more humane to leave the Philippines as a separate