The American occupation of the Philippines from 1899 spawned a widespread indigenous resistance whose “hatred of our people is as bitter as it is groundless,” one American general puzzled.

Not all Americans saw it that way. William Jennings Bryan‘s populist magazine The Commoner slagged the U.S. Army for its liberal use of “the methods best calculated to give them new reasons for hating us.”

Cartoon on the cover of Life magazine’s May 22, 1902 issue (click for larger image) shows colonial European powers chortling, ‘Those pious Yankees can’t throw stones at us any more’ as they watch Americans apply the water cure to a Filipino captive. Torture by water cure was widespread during the Philippines-American War.

“The native is tied down flat on the ground and his mouth forced open with sticks or a string,” one soldier described it (pdf source; it’s on page 23). “Water is poured down his throat through a bamboo tube, which is nearly always handy. The native must drink the stuff, and it is poured down him until he can hold no more. As much as a gallon can be forced into a man that way. Then the water is pumped out of him by stamping on his stomach or rolling him over. When he comes to the native is always ready to talk.”

Apart from guerrillas in the field, Filipino insurgents opposed the occupiers’ superior firepower with the nasty asymmetrical tactics of assassination and terrorism, and that’s what brings us to today’s post.

Filipino terrorists known as Ducots, Mandoducots, or Sandathan on August 28, 1900 murdered a wealthy Los Banos landowner named Honorato Quisumbing who served as a town “presidente” under the American occupation.

A U.S. military court found that nine prisoners at the bar (in combination with “other natives whose names are unknown”) made “an assault upon the said Honorato Quisumbing with clubs, knives, bolos, and daggers, and did then and there wilfully, feloniously, and with malice aforethought kill and murder the said Honorato Quisumbing by striking, cutting, and stabbing the said Honorato Quisumbing with the said clubs, knives, bolos, and daggers.”

The decedent was a Visayan doing business as a merchant at Santa Cruz and Los Banos … formerly loyal to the Spanish Government and transferred his loyalty, active assistance, and cordial good will to the succeeding Government of the United States … Because of his friendshipfor, and willingness to aid, the forces of the United States, he was made a marked man, and the order went forth from the insurgent chiefs that he should be secured, dead or alive; and, as the sequel shows, a money reward was offered for his life.

General Arthur MacArthur — father of World War II General Douglas MacArthur — commuted four of the sentences to prison terms, and approved the remaining five executions for April 5, 1901.

Honorato Quisumbing’s widow was compensated by American authorities to the tune of $1,500. One of the victim’s seven sons, Eduardo, grew up to become his country’s leading botanist.

Further north on Luzon that same date, the pueblo of Mexico witnessed the hanging of insurgent captain Isabello del Rosario, also by authority of the American military government.

He’d been convicted of various depredations as what his prosecutors called “a notorious outlaw,” the most shocking of which was buring alive a man who had been reported to have made suspicious inquiries as to the whereabouts of the guerrillas. (He was also convicted of rape, extortion, and the most egregious war crime, fighting out of uniform.)

On this day..

• 1923: Bernard Pomroy
• 1919: The Pinsk Massacre
• 1525: Jakob Wehe, rebel priest
• 1864: Jose Maria Chavez Alonso, governor of Aguascalientes
• 1356: Four friends of Charles the Bad
• 1766: William Whittle
• Themed Set: Lancaster's Golgotha
• 2005: Glen James Ocha, poorly endowed
• 1916: Joseph Hani, abandoned
• 1918: Robert Prager lynched during war hysteria
• 1984: Elmo Patrick Sonnier, Dead Man Walking
• 1722: Arundel Cooke and John Woodburne, despite a novel defense
• 1794: Georges Danton and his followers