1931 VINTAGE ORIGINAL PRESS PHOTO OF WILLIAM CAMERON FORBESan American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and Ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.
William Cameron Forbes (1870–1959)
Non-career appointee
State of Residence: Massachusetts
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Japan)
Appointed: June 17, 1930
Presentation of Credentials: September 25, 1930
Termination of Mission: Left Japan March 22, 1932
He was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and Ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.
He was the son of William Hathaway Forbes, president of the Bell Telephone Company, and wife Edith Emerson, a daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, nephew of James Grant Forbes and grandson of Francis Blackwell Forbes. After graduating from Harvard in 1892, he embarked on a business career, eventually becoming a partner in J. M. Forbes and Company.
William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and Ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.
He was the son of William Hathaway Forbes, president of the Bell Telephone Company, and wife Edith Emerson, a daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, nephew of James Grant Forbes and grandson of Francis Blackwell Forbes. After graduating from Harvard in 1892, he embarked on a business career, eventually becoming a partner in J. M. Forbes and Company.
PHILIPPINES
During the administration of President William Howard Taft, Forbes was governor-general of the Philippine from 1909 to 1913. Previously, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, he had been Commissioner of Commerce and Police in the American colonial Insular Government of the Philippines from 1904 through 1908; and he was Vice Governor from 1908 through 1909. As modest legacy from those years of service in Manila, the gated community of Forbes Park in Makati, was named after him; and this community is the residence of some of the wealthiest people in the country. Also, Lacson Ave. (Formerly Forbes Ave.) in Manila is still called "Forbes" by some up to the present day.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding sent Forbes and Leonard Wood as heads of the Wood-Forbes Commission to investigate conditions in the Philippines. The Commission concluded that Filipinos were not yet ready for independence from the United States, a finding that was widely criticized in the Philippines.
HAITI
Forbes was appointed by President Herbert Hoover in 1930 to lead a commission charged with investigating the reasons for ongoing minor rebellions in Haiti.
JAPAN
Forbes was nominated By President Hoover and confirmed as United States Ambassador to Japan, 1930-1932.
LATER YEARS
Forbes received an LL.D. from Bates College in 1932. He was on the Board of Trustees, Carnegie Institution of Washington and a Life Member of the Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was on the original standing committee of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles from 1941. He died unmarried in 1959.
His seasonal home Birdwood, a mansion built in the 1930s for him in southern Georgia, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
William Cameron Forbes (b. 21 May 1870; d. 24 December 1959), businessman and presidential adviser. Forbes, born in Milton, Massachusetts, graduated in 1892 from Harvard, where he later coached football. In 1894 he took a position at a Boston brokerage firm. He was named a life partner in the family investment house in 1899.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Forbes to the Philippines Commission. He served there in various capacities, including governor-general, until 1913. The following year, he was appointed receiver of the Brazil Railway Company, which had operations in five South American countries.
Forbes was sent back to the Philippines in 1921, as part of a commission to study the future of U.S. relations there. The commission concluded that it would be a mistake to withdraw from the islands at that time. Later, Forbes wrote a history of the Philippines (1929).
In 1930, Herbert Hoover appointed Forbes to head a commission to advise him on U.S. policy regarding Haiti. There had been anti-American demonstrations in 1929 and expressions of discontent with the continued American military occupation of Haiti. Hoover wanted assistance in settling civil disturbances and in assessing the continued occupation.
Some of the commission members wanted the troops pulled out immediately. However, a majority, including Forbes, recommended a phased withdrawal to be completed no later than 1936, and they recommended that all services run by Americans be Haitianized.
William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and Ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.
He was the son of William Hathaway Forbes, president of the Bell Telephone Company, and wife Edith Emerson, a daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was grandson of botanist Francis Blackwell Forbes. After graduating from Harvard in 1892, he embarked on a business career, eventually becoming a partner in J. M. Forbes and Company.[1]
Contents
1Philippines
2Haiti
3Japan
4Later years
5Head coaching record
6Sources
6.1Selected works
7See also
8References
9External links
Philippines
During the administration of President William Howard Taft, Forbes was Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913.[2] Previously, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, he had been Commissioner of Commerce and Police in the American colonial Insular Government of the Philippines from 1904 through 1908; and he was Vice Governor from 1908 through 1909.[1][3]
Forbes, who was a polo enthusiast, founded the Manila Polo Club in 1919.[4] It was the first polo field in the Philippines.[5] Forbes had envisioned the club as a venue for polo and leisure for "gentlemen of a certain class" assigned to work in the Philippines like himself.[6] He served as delegate of the club until the outbreak of World War II.[7]The clubhouse was inaugurated on November 27, 1909.[4]
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding sent Forbes and Leonard Wood as heads of the Wood-Forbes Commission to investigate conditions in the Philippines.[1][8] The Commission concluded that Filipinos were not yet ready for independence from the United States, a finding that was widely criticized in the Philippines.[9]
As modest legacy from those years of service in Manila, the gated community of Forbes Park in Makati, was named after him; and this community is the residence of some of the wealthiest people in the country. Lacson Avenue (formerly Gov. Forbes Street) in Sampaloc, Manila is still called "Forbes" by some up to the present day.
Haiti
Forbes was appointed by President Herbert Hoover in 1930 to lead a commission charged with investigating the reasons for ongoing minor rebellions in Haiti.[1]
Japan
Forbes was nominated By President Hoover and confirmed as United States Ambassador to Japan. He served from 1930 to 1932.[1]
Later years
Forbes received an LL.D. from Bates College in 1932. He was on the Board of Trustees, Carnegie Institution of Washington and a Life Member of the Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was on the original standing committee of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles from 1941. He died unmarried in 1959.
His seasonal home Birdwood, a mansion built in the 1930s for him in southern Georgia, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Head coaching record
YearTeamOverallConferenceStandingBowl/playoffs
Harvard Crimson (Independent) (1897–1898)
1897Harvard10–1–1
1898Harvard11–0
Harvard:21–1–1
Total:21–1–1
National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth
Sources
Forbes papers are in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Copies of his annotated journal are at the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. The report of the Forbes Commissions Haitian analysis is at the Library of Congress.
Philippine administrator:
Peter W. Stanley, A Nation in the Making: The Philippines and the United States, 1899–1921 (1974)
Rev. Camillus Gott, "William Cameron Forbes and the Philippines, 1904–1946" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1974)
Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the Philippines, 1929–1946 (1965).
Ambassador to Japan:
Gary Ross, "W. Cameron Forbes: The Diplomacy of a Darwinist," in R. D. Burns and E. M. Bennett, eds., Diplomats in Crisis (1974).
Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (1957)
Armin Rappaport, Henry L. Stimson and Japan, 1931–1933 (1963)
James B. Crowley, Japans Quest for Autonomy (1966).
Selected works
Forbes wrote the following books and articles:
1911 -- "As to Polo", Dedham Polo and Country Club.
1921 -- The Romance of Business
1935 -- Fuddlehead by Fuddlehead (autobiography) the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
1936 -- "A Survey of Developments in the Philippine Movement for Independence," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1932–1936.
1939 -- "American Policies in the Far East," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (January 1939).
Anticipating the visit of the prominent Chicago architect and
planner Daniel Burnham to the Philippines, the observations
of W. Cameron Forbes, then freshly appointed to the (US)
Philippine Commission as secretary of commerce and police,
reflected pride in perceived American achievements in the
archipelago, but also traces of the bleaker realities of colonial life in the
new US tropical empire, despite Forbes's bracing technocratic optimism.
Orchestrated by Forbes together with the US secretary of war (and former
Philippine governor-general) William Howard Taft to produce a major
plan of proposed improvements for the capital in Manila—along with an
original plan for the town of Baguio, the piney Cordillera resort that the
Philippine Commission (1903a) had already declared the “summer capital
of the Archipelago”—Burnham's visit to the Philippines was meant to
address at least some of the problems of empire by aesthetic means, through
interventions in landscape and built environment. If “things were in a
depressed condition,” for Forbes (1904a, 2) and the Insular Government,1
the
Burnham plans would uplift them (cf. Morley 2016), meanwhile leaving an
enduring stamp—and perhaps entrenching US geopolitical and economic
interests—in the dual Philippine capitals.
Burnham was by this time the celebrated master planner of Chicago's
1893 “White City” World's Columbian Exposition and was also well
kirsch / Burnham Plans and US Landscape Imperialism 317
known for the skyscraping and Beaux-Arts achievements of his Chicago
architectural firm, Burnham and Root. Concurrently with the Philippine
projects, Burnham was contributing or had recently contributed to major
City Beautiful planning efforts that included Cleveland, San Francisco, and
Washington, DC, later followed by his enduring 1909 plan of Chicago. In
these designs Burnham had taken lessons from the blend of monumental
neoclassicism, the emerging field of landscape architecture, and
circumscribed public spaces that had been “crowd-tested” in the temporary,
festival spaces of the White City, for developing more or less permanent
projects of urban landscape transformation (Hines 1979; Smith 2006; Ellem
2014; Vernon 2014). Given this track record in the production of spectacular
urban spaces, Burnham's involvement in the American effort to remodel
Manila was a matter of prestige for the Insular Government, in particular for
Forbes, the Boston Brahmin grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had
drawn on his own networks of cultural capital to enlist Burnham (Hines 1979,
197–216). The opportunity to mark the emergence of an American empire
in tropical Asia was evidently also attractive for Burnham, who like Forbes
easily adopted the Republican aura of the reluctant—or not so reluctant—
imperialist. When Forbes, prior to his own departure for Manila in July 1904,
had asked the architect's advice on who to hire for the Manila and Baguio
projects after Frederic Law Olmsted proved unavailable, Burnham, perhaps
divining Forbes's intentions, recommended himself.
Burnham steamed into Manila Bay with a designer from his firm, the
architect Pierce Anderson, on 7 December 1904. The two remained in the
Philippines for about six weeks, carrying out site visits around Manila and
initiating work on the plans; meanwhile Burnham was feted by US Insular
officials and military leaders. Burnham and Anderson also journeyed with
Forbes to Baguio, located 233 kilometers north of Manila, by train, steam, and
horseback—and roughly 1,540 meters up from sea level—where 10 square
miles (26 square kilometers) had just been set aside by the commission within
which the summer capital plan was to take shape. The “Plan of Proposed
Improvements” for Manila (Burnham and Anderson 1906), submitted to
Congress from Chicago in June 1905, would situate Manila, the Spanish
colonial capital since 1571, within an evolving American planning tradition
at a moment when North American urban spaces were themselves being
intensively reconstructed. In the Philippines, as I argue in this article, the
Burnham plans would also serve to place landscape aesthetics squarely on the
318 Pshev?65, no. 3 (2017)
agenda of US cultural imperialism and geopolitics. The Manila plan would
present, alongside a bayfront landscape enhanced for elite consumption,
at least a quasi-democratic distribution of City Beautiful public spaces and
greenways. However, the continuing investment in Baguio—which required
construction and maintenance of a road ascending 5,000 feet by steep
switchbacks to a then largely American enclave of mountain cottages, playing
fields, sanitarium, and soon Forbes's own magnificent Topside residence, a
modern stone bungalow perched majestically on a ridge overlooking Baguio
and surrounding mountains and valleys, complete with stables, gardens, and
guest quarters—appeared as singularly tone-deaf to local conditions. On the
heels of the decade of devastating warfare, famine, and disease to which
Forbes (1904a) referred in his 29 August letter, the high costs of building
the summer capital at Baguio (and providing access to it) would open the
commission to criticism on both sides of the Pacific.
Taking Burnham's 1904–1905 visit to the Philippines as a starting
point, this article examines the efforts to extend American empire through
landscape, focusing on aesthetic dimensions or what might be called
a landscape vision of US empire. Its purpose is to understand how the
ideological contradictions of the imperial moment—for the US, between
democracy and empire, liberator and subjugator (Kirsch 2011)—were built
into American colonial spaces, sometimes brutally, but sometimes through
aesthetic means in the formation of setting and landscape.2
As proposed
interventions in landscape, the Burnham plans offer glimpses of the linked
spatial and symbolic strategies for structuring social encounters and everyday
relations of power in the Philippines—or in the case of Baguio, for attempting
literally to rise above them. But the story also illustrates the precariousness
of landscape—and empire—as spatial strategies of power. Before we rejoin
Burnham and Anderson on Manila Bay in 1904, in the next section it is
necessary to turn briefly to the convergence of landscape and aesthetics,
which was a key premise of Burnham and Anderson's work, and to situate the
aesthetic landscape as an element of US imperialism within broader efforts
to reproduce empire over time in the Philippines through the production of
colonial spaces and subjectivities.
The Aesthetic Landscape
Landscape is commonly taken to mean the (usually scenic) setting for
human experience, or the representation of such settings in painting and
kirsch / Burnham Plans and US Landscape Imperialism 319
other visual arts.3
In traditional geographical research, landscape emerged
as a key morphological concept describing lands as shaped by both nature
and human practices into differentiated regional settings, each with a
distinctive regional economy and “look of the land” (Sauer 1925; Vidal de la
Blache 1908). Because the highly visualized convergences of aesthetics and
landscape, which appear as perfectly “natural,” were historically developed,
a history of the landscape idea can also be read in part in the history of
aesthetics; their meanings are practically intertwined.
Kant interpreted the field of aesthetics from classical Greek roots
as constituting a specialized engagement with the material world as
apprehended by the senses, a science of sense perception (Williams 1983,
31). By the mid-nineteenth century, the term was gaining currency in English
in more explicit connection with visual appearance and its human effects,
especially in relation to beauty and the arts (Williams 1983). Landscape
as a site for sensory apprehension and the experience of beauty, grandeur,
and symbolic elements emerged as a conceptual category alongside the
professionalization of landscape aesthetics and expertise. Perhaps initially
through landscape painting, the Europeans “represented their world as a
source of aesthetic enjoyment—as landscape” (Cosgrove 1998, 1, italics
added). The Europeans also extended the aesthetic landscape ideal, evoking
beauty, order, and harmony into the material environment of the landscape
“itself” in landed estates and gardens, public parks, and urban architecture
(Cosgrove and Daniels 1988). It was an aesthetic sensibility of landscape that
Burnham had cultivated in his own planning efforts (Hines 1972), largely in
connection with the new discipline of landscape or landscape architecture
in late–nineteenth-century North America (most prominently reflected in
Olmstead's work) and its incorporation into City Beautiful urban planning.
For Denis Cosgrove (1998), taking landscape as a historically constructed
way of seeing, rather than as a received concept in cultural and historical
geography, helped to open the aesthetic landscape to a potent critique of
ideology. Thus were the Palladian landscapes of the Veneto “intended to
serve the purpose of reflecting back to the powerful viewer, at ease in his villa,
the image of a controlled and well-ordered, productive and relaxed world
wherein serious matters are laid aside” (ibid., 24). Whether painted on canvas
or sculpted into the material environment, aesthetic landscapes have served
at times to erase the conditions of their own production, or to naturalize a
particular “order of things,” especially at moments of political (territorial) or
320 Pshev?65, no. 3 (2017)
property transition (cf. Mitchell 1996). The Burnham plans for Manila and
Baguio would offer cover, respectively, for both kinds of transition, setting
the tone for a US landscape imperialism that would become more widely
distributed across the Philippines in the following decade (cf. Morley
2016). To recognize the political dimensions of landscape aesthetics is not,
of course, to reject the value of aesthetics in built environments, to reduce
the stakes of urban planning to their aesthetic dimensions, nor even to
foreclose on the possibilities of social uplift through beautification that
animated City Beautiful planners. What I do wish to emphasize, however,
by way of a short history of the making of plans, is the prioritization of
aesthetics by an influential regime of Insular state actors who became
deeply invested in what might be called a landscape vision of US empire
in the Philippines.
In telling this story, this article offers an engagement with social
formation and symbolic landscape (Cosgrove 1998) in the context of early
US colonial state interventions in the Philippines and attempts to read
these landscapes “through” Lefebvrian categories of spatial production and
state theory (Lefebvre 1991, 2009; cf. Lico 2007).4
Lefebvre understood
space as a multifaceted product of contested social relations; similarly
he saw the state itself as existing in persistent tension with social forces
that threatened to undermine it at weak points, withering away an always
precarious authority. This authority was especially unstable in colonial and
imperial contexts in which the state lacked legitimacy. Hence, for Gerard
Lico (2007, 244), “The colonial landscape is not simply a palimpsest
reflecting asymmetric power relations undergirding colonial society; it is
also a terrain of discipline and resistance.” Reading the aesthetic landscape
through Lefebvrian categories allows us to examine the Burnham plans
not only as represented spaces—the plans themselves—or in terms of their
concrete outcomes (and contemporary traces) in the physical landscape,
but also as moments in a process of seeing, interpreting, and reconstructing
spaces that were intended to reflect the interests and values of those who
produced them. It compels us, in this context, to be attuned to registers
of beauty and delight that were central to their production and function
as landscapes. But while landscapes may be designed as naturalizing or
aggrandizing symbolic spaces, their meanings, let alone their capacities
for channeling social behavior, are not inherently stable, even though
landscape iconography has been fashioned classically to evoke a sense of
kirsch / Burnham Plans and US Landscape Imperialism 321
permanence or timelessness (Gottmann 1952). Hence, the stabilization of
meaning in form is precisely the cultural work—and aesthetic politics—
that produced landscapes are intended to achieve (Cosgrove and Daniels
1988; Mitchell 1996; Olwig 2002).
In the Philippines efforts to create a distinctively American colonial
landscape at the start of the twentieth century, while also creating a set of
landscapes distinctly for Americans, were prioritized by a small “aesthetic
regime” of elite Insular state actors as pivotal problems of Philippine
governance, an essential cultural politics of landscape and built environment.
The fledgling summer capital at Baguio, located near the site of an earlier
Spanish Army garrison and sanitarium at La Trinidad (Worcester 1914/2004;
Reed 1999; Brody 2010), most closely embodied this aesthetic. Also inspired
by the British “hill station” at Simla, India, advocates deemed a summer
health resort at Baguio to be vital for Americans living in the tropics as a
space not only for surviving the hardships of colonial life in the tropics, but
also for enjoying its beauty and pleasures, signaling the aesthetic registers
on which the American empire was to be experienced by its agents abroad.5
To understand how the Burnham plans were produced and in different
ways realized in the Philippine landscape, this article turns more closely
to the relations through which the political and aesthetic project of US
landscape imperialism was forged, including intimate, embodied relations
of cultural authority, race, nation, class, and gender, and particular kinds
of relationships, like friendship, in which meaning, information, and
“common sense” were easily shared. Hence, as a means of drawing together
the intimate with the imperial and geopolitical, the next section introduces
a rudimentary “regime theory” of agency in the production of colonial
state spaces, situating Burnham's visit under the umbrella of a wider set of
spatial transformations, including port, road, and railroad expansion and the
refashioning of civic and market spaces.
Forbes, William Cameron. 1904a. Letter to Daniel H. Burnham, 29 Aug. Box 1, FF 31. Daniel H.
Burnham Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
———. 1904b. Journal, 4 Sept. Journals of W. Cameron Forbes (JWCF), vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes
Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1904c. Journal, 5 Sept. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1904d. Journal, 17 Sept. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1904e. Journal, 8 Dec. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1904f. Journal, 22 Dec. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
354 Pshev?65, no. 3 (2017)
———. 1904g. Journal, 26 Dec. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905a. Journal, 1 Jan. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905b. Journal, 8 Jan. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905c. Journal, 3 Feb. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905d. Journal, 1 May. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905e. Journal, 26 June. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1905f. Journal, 5 Sept. JWCF, vol. 1. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1906a. Journal, 5 May. JWCF, vol. 2. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1906b. Journal, 26 May. JWCF, vol. 2. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1907. Journal, 28 April. JWCF, vol. 2. W. Cameron Forbes Papers, MS Am 1365. Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
———. 1930a. Journals of William Cameron Forbes (JWCF), v
The Philippines (/ˈfɪlɪpiːnz/ i; Filipino: Pilipinas),[14] officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas),[d] is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. In the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of 7,641 islands which are broadly categorized in three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It is the worlds twelfth-most-populous country, with diverse ethnicities and cultures. Manila is the countrys capital, and its most populated city is Quezon City; both are within Metro Manila.
Negritos, the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, were followed by waves of Austronesian peoples. The adoption of Animism, Hinduism, and Islam established island-kingdoms ruled by datus, rajas, and sultans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer leading a fleet for Spain, marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of King Philip II of Castile. Spanish settlement via New Spain, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming ruled by the Crown of Castile, as part of the Spanish Empire, for more than 300 years. Catholic Christianity became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. The Philippine Revolution began in 1896, which became entwined with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, and Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. The ensuing Philippine–American War ended with the United States controlling the territory until the Japanese invasion of the islands during World War II. After the United States retook the Philippines from the Japanese, the Philippines became independent in 1946. The country has had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a decades-long dictatorship in a nonviolent revolution.
The Philippines is an emerging market and a newly industrialized country, whose economy is transitioning from being agricultural to service- and manufacturing-centered. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the East Asia Summit; it is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Its location as an island country on the Pacific Ring of Fire and close to the equator makes it prone to earthquakes and typhoons. The Philippines has a variety of natural resources and a globally-significant level of biodiversity.
Etymology
Main article: Names of the Philippines
During his 1542 expedition, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the islands of Leyte and Samar "Felipinas" after King Philip II of Castile (then Prince of Asturias). Eventually, the name "Las Islas Filipinas" would be used for the archipelagos Spanish possessions.[15]: 6 Other names, such as "Islas del Poniente" (Western Islands), "Islas del Oriente" (Eastern Islands), Ferdinand Magellans name, and "San Lázaro" (Islands of St. Lazarus), were used by the Spanish to refer to islands in the region before Spanish rule was established.[16][17][18]
During the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the República Filipina (the Philippine Republic).[19] American colonial authorities referred to the country as the Philippine Islands (a translation of the Spanish name).[20] The United States began changing its nomenclature from "the Philippine Islands" to "the Philippines" in the Philippine Autonomy Act and the Jones Law.[21] The official title "Republic of the Philippines" was included in the 1935 constitution as the name of the future independent state,[22] and in all succeeding constitutional revisions.[23][24]
History
Main article: History of the Philippines
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Philippine history.
Prehistory (pre–900)
Main article: Prehistory of the Philippines
There is evidence of early hominins living in what is now the Philippines as early as 709,000 years ago.[25] A small number of bones from Callao Cave potentially represent an otherwise unknown species, Homo luzonensis, who lived 50,000 to 67,000 years ago.[26][27] The oldest modern human remains on the islands are from the Tabon Caves of Palawan, U/Th-dated to 47,000 ± 11–10,000 years ago.[28] Tabon Man is presumably a Negrito, among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants descended from the first human migrations out of Africa via the coastal route along southern Asia to the now-sunken landmasses of Sundaland and Sahul.[29]
The first Austronesians reached the Philippines from Taiwan around 2200 BC, settling the Batanes Islands (where they built stone fortresses known as ijangs)[30] and northern Luzon. Jade artifacts have been dated to 2000 BC,[31][32] with lingling-o jade items made in Luzon with raw materials from Taiwan.[33] By 1000 BC, the inhabitants of the archipelago had developed into four societies: hunter-gatherer tribes, warrior societies, highland plutocracies, and port principalities.[34]
Early states (900–1565)
Main article: History of the Philippines (900–1565)
The earliest known surviving written record in the Philippines is the early-10th-century AD Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which was written in Old Malay using the early Kawi script with a number of technical Sanskrit words and Old Javanese or Old Tagalog honorifics.[35] By the 14th century, several large coastal settlements emerged as trading centers and became the focus of societal changes.[36] Some polities had exchanges with other states throughout Asia.[37]: 3 [38] Trade with China is believed to have begun during the Tang dynasty, and expanded during the Song dynasty;[39] by the second millennium AD, some polities were part of the tributary system of China.[15]: 177–178 [37]: 3 Indian cultural traits such as linguistic terms and religious practices began to spread in the Philippines during the 14th century, probably via the Hindu Majapahit Empire.[40][41] By the 15th century, Islam was established in the Sulu Archipelago and spread from there.[36]
Polities founded in the Philippines between the 10th and 16th centuries include Maynila,[42] Tondo, Namayan, Pangasinan, Cebu, Butuan, Maguindanao, Lanao, Sulu, and Ma-i.[43] The early polities typically had a three-tier social structure: nobility, freemen, and dependent debtor-bondsmen.[37]: 3 [44]: 672 Among the nobility were leaders known as datus, who were responsible for ruling autonomous groups (barangays or dulohan).[45] When the barangays banded together to form a larger settlement or a geographically-looser alliance,[37]: 3 [46] their more-esteemed members would be recognized as a "paramount datu",[47]: 58 [34] rajah or sultan,[48] and would rule the community.[49] Population density is thought to have been low during the 14th to 16th centuries[47]: 18 due to the frequency of typhoons and the Philippines location on the Pacific Ring of Fire.[50] Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in 1521, claimed the islands for Spain, and was killed by Lapulapus men in the Battle of Mactan.[51]: 21 [52]: 261
Spanish and American colonial rule (1565–1946)
Main articles: History of the Philippines (1565–1898) and History of the Philippines (1898–1946)
See caption
Manila, 1847
Colonization by the Crown of Castile began when Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi arrived from New Spain (Spanish: Nueva España) in 1565.[53][54]: 20–23 Many Filipinos were brought to New Spain as slaves and forced crew.[55] Spanish Manila became the capital of the Spanish East Indies in 1571,[56][57] Spanish territories in Asia and the Pacific.[58] The Spanish invaded local states using the principle of divide and conquer,[52]: 374 bringing most of what is the present-day Philippines under one unified administration.[59][60] Disparate barangays were deliberately consolidated into towns, where Catholic missionaries could more easily convert their inhabitants to Christianity.[61]: 53, 68 [62] From 1565 to 1821, the Philippines was governed as a territory of the Mexico City-based Viceroyalty of New Spain; it was then administered from Madrid after the Mexican War of Independence.[63]: 81 Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade[64] by Manila galleons built in Bicol and Cavite.[65][66]
During its rule, Spain nearly bankrupted its treasury quelling indigenous revolts[63]: 111–122 and defending against external military attacks,[67]: 1077 [68] including Moro piracy, [69] a 17th century war against the Dutch, 18th century British occupation of Manila, and conflict with Muslims in the south.[70]: 4 [undue weight? – discuss]
Administration of the Philippines was considered a drain on the economy of New Spain,[67]: 1077 and abandoning it or trading it for other territory was debated. This course of action was opposed because of the islands economic potential, security, and the desire to continue religious conversion in the region.[47]: 7–8 [71] The colony survived on an annual subsidy from the Spanish crown[67]: 1077 averaging 250,000 pesos,[47]: 8 usually paid as 75 tons of silver bullion from the Americas.[72] British forces occupied Manila from 1762 to 1764 during the Seven Years War, and Spanish rule was restored with the 1763 Treaty of Paris.[54]: 81–83 The Spanish considered their war with the Muslims in Southeast Asia an extension of the Reconquista.[73][74] The Spanish–Moro conflict lasted for several hundred years; Spain conquered portions of Mindanao and Jolo during the last quarter of the 19th century,[75] and the Muslim Moro in the Sultanate of Sulu acknowledged Spanish sovereignty.[76][77]
Photo of a large group of men on steps. Some are seated, and others are standing; several are wearing top hats.
Ilustrados in Madrid around 1890
Philippine ports opened to world trade during the 19th century, and Filipino society began to change.[78][79] Social identity changed, with the term Filipino encompassing all residents of the archipelago instead of solely referring to Spaniards born in the Philippines.[80][81]
Revolutionary sentiment grew in 1872 after three activist Catholic priests were executed on questionable grounds.[82][83] This inspired the Propaganda Movement, organized by Marcelo H. del Pilar, José Rizal, Graciano López Jaena, and Mariano Ponce, which advocated political reform in the Philippines.[84] Rizal was executed on December 30, 1896, for rebellion, and his death radicalized many who had been loyal to Spain.[85] Attempts at reform met with resistance; Andrés Bonifacio founded the Katipunan secret society, which sought independence from Spain through armed revolt, in 1892.[63]: 137
The Katipunan Cry of Pugad Lawin began the Philippine Revolution in 1896.[86] Internal disputes led to the Tejeros Convention, at which Bonifacio lost his position and Emilio Aguinaldo was elected the new leader of the revolution.[87]: 145–147 The 1897 Pact of Biak-na-Bato resulted in the Hong Kong Junta government in exile. The Spanish–American War began the following year, and reached the Philippines; Aguinaldo returned, resumed the revolution, and declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898.[88]: 26 In December 1898, the islands were ceded by Spain to the United States with Puerto Rico and Guam after the Spanish–American War.[89][90]
The First Philippine Republic was established on January 21, 1899.[91]
Filipino General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops in Pampanga around 1898, during the Philippine-American War.
The United States would not recognize the First Philippine Republic, beginning the Philippine–American War.[92] The war resulted in the deaths of 250,000 to 1 million civilians, primarily due to famine and disease.[93] Many Filipinos were transported by the Americans to concentration camps, where thousands died.[94][95] After the fall of the First Philippine Republic in 1902, an American civilian government was established with the Philippine Organic Act.[96] American forces continued to secure and extend their control of the islands, suppressing an attempted extension of the Philippine Republic,[87]: 200–202 [93] securing the Sultanate of Sulu,[97][98] establishing control of interior mountainous areas which had resisted Spanish conquest,[99] and encouraging large-scale resettlement of Christians in once-predominantly-Muslim Mindanao.[100][101]
Douglas MacArthur, Sergio Osmeña, and Osmeñas staff wading ashore in knee-deep water
General Douglas MacArthur and Sergio Osmeña (left) coming ashore during the Battle of Leyte on October 20, 1944
Cultural developments strengthened a national identity,[102][103]: 12 and Tagalog began to take precedence over other local languages.[61]: 121 Governmental functions were gradually given to Filipinos by the Taft Commission;[67]: 1081, 1117 the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act began the creation of the Commonwealth of the Philippines the following year, with Manuel Quezon president and Sergio Osmeña vice president.[104] Quezons priorities were defence, social justice, inequality, economic diversification, and national character.[67]: 1081, 1117 Filipino (a standardized variety of Tagalog) became the national language,[105]: 27–29 womens suffrage was introduced,[106][52]: 416 and land reform was considered.[107][108][109]
The Empire of Japan invaded the Philippines during World War II,[110] and the Second Philippine Republic was established as a puppet state governed by Jose P. Laurel.[111][112] Beginning in 1942, the Japanese occupation of the Philippines was opposed by large-scale underground guerrilla activity.[113][114][115] Atrocities and war crimes were committed during the war, including the Bataan Death March and the Manila massacre.[116][117] Allied troops defeated the Japanese in 1945, and over one million Filipinos were estimated to have died by the end of the war.[118][119] On October 11, 1945, the Philippines became a founding member of the United Nations.[120][121]: 38–41 On July 4, 1946, during the presidency of Manuel Roxas, the countrys independence was recognized by the United States with the Treaty of Manila.[121]: 38–41 [122]
Independence (1946–present)
The leaders of the SEATO nations in front of the Congress Building in Manila, hosted by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (4th from left) on October 24, 1966.
Main articles: History of the Philippines (1946–1965), History of the Philippines (1965–1986), and History of the Philippines (1986–present)
Efforts at post-war reconstruction and ending the Hukbalahap Rebellion succeeded during Ramon Magsaysays presidency,[123] but sporadic communist insurgency continued to flare up long afterward.[124] Under Magsaysays successor, Carlos P. Garcia, the government initiated a Filipino First policy which promoted Filipino-owned businesses.[61]: 182 Succeeding Garcia, Diosdado Macapagal moved Independence Day from July 4 to June 12—the date of Emilio Aguinaldos declaration—[125] and pursued a claim on eastern North Borneo.[126][127]
In 1965, Macapagal lost the presidential election to Ferdinand Marcos. Early in his presidency, Marcos began infrastructure projects funded mostly by foreign loans; this improved the economy, and contributed to his reelection in 1969.[128]: 58 [129] Near the end of his last constitutionally-permitted term, Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972[130] using the specter of communism[131][132][133] and began to rule by decree;[134] the period was characterized by political repression, censorship, and human rights violations.[135][136] Monopolies controlled by Marcos cronies were established in key industries,[137][138][139] including logging[140] and broadcasting;[52]: 120 a sugar monopoly led to a famine on the island of Negros.[141] With his wife, Imelda, Marcos was accused of corruption and embezzling billions of dollars of public funds.[142][143] Marcos heavy borrowing early in his presidency resulted in economic crashes, exacerbated by an early 1980s recession where the economy contracted by 7.3 percent annually in 1984 and 1985.[144]: 212 [145]
On August 21, 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. (Marcos chief rival) was assassinated on the tarmac at Manila International Airport.[146] Marcos called a snap presidential election in 1986[147] which proclaimed him the winner, but the results were widely regarded as fraudulent.[148] The resulting protests led to the People Power Revolution,[149][150] which forced Marcos and his allies to flee to Hawaii. Aquinos widow, Corazon, was installed as president.[149]
A huge ash cloud, seen from a distance
The June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo was the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century.[151]
The return of democracy and government reforms which began in 1986 were hampered by national debt, government corruption, and coup attempts.[152][128]: xii, xiii A communist insurgency[153][154] and military conflict with Moro separatists persisted;[155] the administration also faced a series of disasters, including the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991.[151] Aquino was succeeded by Fidel V. Ramos, who liberalized the national economy with privatization and deregulation.[156][157] Ramos economic gains were overshadowed by the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.[158][159] His successor, Joseph Estrada, prioritized public housing[160] but faced corruption allegations[161] which led to his overthrow by the 2001 EDSA Revolution and the succession of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on January 20, 2001.[162] Arroyos nine-year administration was marked by economic growth,[9] but was tainted by corruption and political scandals.[163][164] On November 23, 2009, 34 journalists and several civilians were killed in Maguindanao.[165][166] Economic growth continued during Benigno Aquino IIIs administration, which advocated good governance and transparency.[167][168] Aquino III signed a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) resulting in the Bangsamoro Organic Law establishing an autonomous Bangsamoro region, but a shootout with MILF rebels in Mamasapano delayed passage of the law.[169][170]
Rodrigo Duterte, elected president in 2016,[171] launched an infrastructure program[172][173] and an anti-drug campaign[174][175] which reduced drug proliferation[176] but has also led to extrajudicial killings.[177][178] The Bangsamoro Organic Law was enacted in 2018.[179] In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Philippines;[180][181] its gross domestic product shrank by 9.5 percent, the countrys worst annual economic performance since 1947.[182] Marcos son, Bongbong Marcos, won the 2022 presidential election; Dutertes daughter, Sara, became vice president.[183]
Geography
Main articles: Geography of the Philippines and List of islands of the Philippines
Map of the Philippines, color-coded by elevation
The Philippines is generally mountainous; uplands make up 65 percent of the countrys total land area.[44]: 38 [184]
The Philippines is an archipelago of about 7,641 islands,[185][186] covering a total area (including inland bodies of water) of about 300,000 square kilometers (115,831 sq mi).[9][c] Stretching 1,850 kilometres (1,150 mi) north to south,[188] from the South China Sea to the Celebes Sea,[189] the Philippines is bordered by the Philippine Sea to the east,[190][191] and the Sulu Sea to the southwest.[192] The countrys 11 largest islands are Luzon, Mindanao, Samar, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol and Masbate, about 95 percent of its total land area.[193] The Philippines coastline measures 36,289 kilometers (22,549 mi), the worlds fifth-longest,[194] and the countrys exclusive economic zone covers 2,263,816 km2 (874,064 sq mi).[195]
Its highest mountain is Mount Apo on Mindanao, with an altitude of 2,954 meters (9,692 ft) above sea level.[9] The Philippines longest river is the Cagayan River in northern Luzon, which flows for about 520 kilometers (320 mi).[196] Manila Bay, on which is the capital city of Manila,[197] is connected to Laguna de Bay[198] (the countrys largest lake) by the Pasig River.[199]
On the western fringes of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Philippines has frequent seismic and volcanic activity.[200]: 4 The region is seismically active, and has been constructed by plates converging towards each other from multiple directions.[201][202] About five earthquakes are recorded daily, although most are too weak to be felt.[203] The last major earthquakes were in 1976 in the Moro Gulf and in 1990 on Luzon.[204] The Philippines has 23 active volcanoes; of them, Mayon, Taal, Canlaon, and Bulusan have the largest number of recorded eruptions.[205][8]: 26
The country has valuable[206] mineral deposits as a result of its complex geologic structure and high level of seismic activity.[207][208] It is thought to have the worlds second-largest gold deposits (after South Africa), large copper deposits,[209] and the worlds largest deposits of palladium.[210] Other minerals include chromium, nickel, molybdenum, platinum, and zinc.[211] However, poor management and law enforcement, opposition from indigenous communities, and past environmental damage have left these resources largely untapped.[209][212]
Biodiversity
Main article: Wildlife of the Philippines
See also: List of threatened species of the Philippines
Water buffalo with large, curved horns, seen from above
The carabao is the national animal of the Philippines. It symbolizes, strength, power, efficiency, perseverance and hard work.[213]
The Philippines is a megadiverse country,[214][215] with some of the worlds highest rates of discovery and endemism (67 percent).[216][217] With an estimated 13,500 plant species in the country (3,500 of which are endemic),[218] Philippine rain forests have an array of flora:[219][220] about 3,500 species of trees,[221] 8,000 flowering plant species, 1,100 ferns, and 998 orchid species[222] have.
PHOTO DE PRESSE 1931 AVEC CAMERON FORBES AMBASSADEUR GOUVERNEUR GÉNÉRAL DES ÉTATS-UNIS PHILIPPINES acheter
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