1901 – 4 July 1946

American rule, the Commonwealth and independence in 1946

The United States builds schools, roads and elected assemblies, makes English the language of education and government, and promises independence, which comes on 4 July 1946 after the devastation of war.

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)

Well established colonialismindependencelanguagestatehood

The United States governed the islands as its only large colony. In 1901 the transport ship Thomas brought some 500 American teachers, the Thomasites, to staff a public school system taught in English. An elected Philippine Assembly met from 1907, dominated by the landed, Spanish-speaking elite, whose families would remain at the centre of politics for the century to come.

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)

Filipinos were “US nationals”, able to move to Hawaii and California as labourers, where they often faced harsh racism.

The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)

The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934 set a ten-year transition. In 1935 the Commonwealth of the Philippines was inaugurated under President Manuel Quezon, who also championed a national language based on Tagalog.

State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)

Japan’s invasion interrupted the transition, but on 4 July 1946, in a devastated Manila, the Republic of the Philippines became independent. The price included the Bell Trade Act, which gave Americans equal rights to exploit Philippine resources, and a 1947 agreement that kept US military bases, such as Clark and Subic Bay, until the Philippine Senate voted against renewing the bases treaty in 1991.

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)

How it's seen

A positive memory

For many older Filipinos, American rule meant public schools, the "Thomasite" teachers, health campaigns and a path to self-government. The US kept its promise of independence, and Filipinos and Americans fought side by side at Bataan.

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)

Nationalist critique

American schooling produced a "miseducation", in Renato Constantino's phrase, that taught Filipinos to admire America and look down on their own languages and history. Independence came with strings: US military bases and trade rules that favoured American business.

The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)

Why it matters today

The Philippines

The American era is why most Filipinos speak English, love basketball, and look to the United States as a natural place to study and work. It also left an elite-dominated democracy and economic ties that critics call "neocolonial". Independence Day was moved from 4 July to 12 June in 1962, to honour the revolution rather than the American handover.