America’s Defeat at Balangiga, 120th Anniversary
“Balangiga Incident” in the Philippine-American War 1899 to 1902
I am the son of a Samareña woman and an American marine. In my American childhood, little was taught to me about the history between my family’s countries. Now I seek out those stories wherever I can find them. Here I will summarize the details, context, and modern relevance of a singularly powerful event in American and Philippine history…
December 10th, 1898: Spain and U.S.A. sign the 1898 Treaty of Paris which grants Cuba independence while ceding Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States of America. No Filipinos were present at the signing of the Treaty even though Emilio Aguinaldo’s Philippine government had collaborated with US forces in the Spanish-American War, which overlapped with the Philippine Revolution.
July 10th, 1899: The US 9th Infantry Regiment is assigned to help quell the Boxer Rebellion in China. The 9th leads the capture of the The Forbidden City in Peking and takes on the name “The Manchus.”
After the Regiment returns to Manila, Company C guards the house of Emilio Aguinaldo, now captured by the US occupation.
I have met Aggie and talked with him for a short time. He is not a remarkably brilliant-looking man, but has a certain amount of magnetism, and he certainly has had an interesting life so far.
~Lt Edward Bumpus in a letter to his family
Uncaptured leaders of the Philippine government scattered throughout the Philippines and attempted to rally diverse provincial Filipinos into guerilla warfare against American forces. Luzviminda Francisco writes:
On the eve of the Samar campaign, war was clearly degenerating into mass slaughter. It was hardly precise to call it “war” any longer. The Americans were simply chasing ragged, poorly armed bands of guerrillas and, failing to catch them, were inflicting the severest punishment on those they could catch — the people of the villages and barrios of the theater of operation.
Much of the population of the Philippine islands is concentrated on the coasts. The interiors of many islands, large or small, are densely forested and mountainous. For centuries, if not millennia, coastal-dwelling people of island SE Asia would temporarily flee inland to escape war and coastal raiding. Filipino resistance fighters driven out by American forces from Luzon (the vast island that houses Manila) took to the Samar mountains while the coastal settlements carried on their daily lives. Some barangay (districts) of Samar continued to pay taxes and food to the Philippine government (the government called insurrectos by Spain and insurgents by America); others extended their hospitality to new American garrisons.
In late September [1901], in the town of Balangiga, Samar, American troops had for some time been abusing the townspeople by packing them into wooden pens at night where they were forced to sleep standing in the rain. Several score of guerrilla General Vincent Lukban’s bolomen infiltrated the town and on the morning of September 28, while the Americans were eating breakfast, Lukban’s men suddenly fell upon them.”
~Luzviminda Francisco
Gina Apostol, Waray author based in the US, describes scenes before and well-after the event in her 2018 novel Insurrecto:
It is the only time in the day when the Americans carry no guns. The men of Balangiga are already gone from their jail, released overnight.
The men had rushed off to the convent to dress with the other ones, the hired men of Guiuan [ggee-wan], San Roque, Lawaan [lawa-an], Giporlos [ggee-por-lows] come to help the Chief and the captain for the garrison’s inspection by General Jakey Smith. So the Chief had explained their presence to the captain.
Police Chief Abanador & sentry Pvt Gamlin
In Pvt. Gamlin’s own words, published in 1931 by 1st Sgt. James O. Taylor:
My post was № 2, on the street, walking east and west, and I was one of the first to be attacked by the Filipinos. They yelled as they came towards me, which was the signal to Filipinos concealed in the church bell-tower to ring the bells for the attack to be made by bolomen hidden in the church during the night to make a rush on the officers’ quarters in the convent adjoining the church.
Pvt. George Allen observed Gamlin’s involvement in the initial action, and wrote in a letter 30 years later,
I can see the chief of police now as he made the attack upon you and grabbed your gun from your shoulder. Things happened so quickly after, that it is surprising to me that any of us were ever left to tell the tale.
While Gamlin saw men rushing from in front of him, Abanador disarmed him and clubbed him with his own gun.
The layout of the garrison was, from West-to-East:
Church — Plaza—2 cone tents— Municipal Hall — Mess Tent
Upper rooms in the Church convent were commandeered as officers’ quarters.
The upper floor of the Municipal Hall was occupied as the main barracks.
80+ local men were confined to the cone tents for daily labor.
Gamlin continued,
When I was attacked, wounded in the head and disarmed, I followed the rush of Filipino prisoners, who were making for our main quarters. I made for the rear entrance, which had a small bamboo shack built onto it, and I had to climb a bamboo ladder to get into it. There I saw Private Ernest U. Ralston fighting bare-handed, and who had just knocked one assailant down. I was met by a Filipino with a bolo strapped to his wrist and a dagger in the other hand. He was too much for me.
I then tried to pass through the connecting door into the main quarters, but was met by a native with Krag [rifle] and bayonet, which he must have taken from one of the sentries. He missed me and stabbed Ralston in the throat. I then retreated across the street to the bamboo quarters — but how I made it I do not know.
The majority of the company was seated in the mess tent at breakfast, having left their rifles in their quarters.
In addition to the Samar locals held in tents and prison cells (either for forced labor around town or on charges of insurrection), there were other townsmen free to live in their homes but expected to report each morning for work.
Many of the townsmen appeared earlier than usual that day, as noted by Pvt. Markley who reportedly said to Pvt. Cain at the door of the Municipal Hall,
The n*ggers are back early today.
White-centering racial norms and othering and that prevailed in America at the turn of the 20th century certainly factored into American-Philippine relations on every social level. This was a half-century after the American Civil War and a quarter-century before the end of the American Indian Wars. Accounts from Company C also use the slur “gugu” or “googoo,” a derogatory American name for Filipinos. It is now largely unknown and less prevalent than the mild political insult: goo-goo which originated at the same time.
As noted earlier, the attack was led by local Police Chief Valeriano Abanador with significant reinforcements of Waray-Waray and some Tagalogs. In 6 additional companies, they occupied the grasses and forests to the East and the North, and across the river behind the church to the West. Many of them blew conch shells and beat drums of wood or bamboo, adding to the din of the church bells, war cries, and death screams. Only the shore of Leyte Gulf to the South was unguarded.
Bolo Machetes vs Krag-Jorgensen Rifles
After neutralizing the commissioned officers, the next objective of the Filipinos was to control the guns. Leaving many privates of Company C untouched, they stormed the barracks buildings through the front doors or through ladders at the windows. These had been placed for maintenance cleaning. The first Filipinos inside threw as many rifles as they could through the windows onto the plaza below. A couple Americans were able to push through the Filipino crowd into the Municipal Hall as well, but they resorted to jumping out of the windows to escape, or else they died.
Standard issue for the US Regular Army at this time was the Krag-Jorgensen rifle, which is distinct for having a 5-round magazine that can be “cut off” to allow the shooter to instead load one bullet at a time. This mechanism can also be confused for the safety lock feature. Thus, many of the Filipinos who acquired a rifle in the conflict were unable to fire more than one shot, if any.
The primary armament of the Filipinos was the bolo, a machete or a long knife with a broad blade rounded or square at the tip. To Filipinos, this object is not actually a weapon, but a tool. In distinction, the sundang is bladed with a pointed end, and more often designed or equipped for combat. The guerilla reinforcements at Balangiga certainly brought sundang, but Company C had previously confiscated all bolos in the town and stored them near the cone tents with other tools. The “employed” local men would report each morning, after being fed by their female relatives (and not by Company C) to collect bolos or picks, and then clear brush around the town limits or trash pits beneath the raised houses. All under the watch of non-commissioned officers.
This routine was carried out for at least a week before the Encounter in anticipation of an inspection by commanding officers, who would want to see that Captain Thomas W. Connell had pursued Company C’s objectives of capturing insurgents and intercepting food and trade with the inland forces.
British journalist and historian Bob Couttie describes Pvt. Gamlin’s engagement after retrieving a rifle thrown to the ground…
“Coming around to the front of the barracks Gamlin had again armed himself. He saw Filipinos throwing guns from the second storey on the municipal hall and calmly opened up on them. Several dropped their weapons as Gamlin fired at them and others in the plaza.
As much as anything else, Gamlin’s sudden appearance at that critical moment, when many of the Company C. survivors believed their lives forfeit, sparked renewed determination to live. It was the beginning of the end of the attack.”
Soldiers scattered between auxiliary barracks who had acquired guns were able to inflict enough casualties that Abanador ordered a retreat. Says Couttie, “perhaps he was unwilling to lose any more men that he’d grown up with.” The Filipino forces did still have an overwhelming advantage of numbers, if not firepower. Maybe Abanador had observed that the Krag rifles were too difficult to use without training, which would necessitate a reassessment of the battlefield objectives.
At the time of the retreat order, the second floor of the Municipal Hall was barricaded from the inside by Filipinos who were unable to shoot out. American soldiers shot in through the doors and walls and killed several.
Company C Regroups
Regaining control of the plaza and commandeered buildings, 26 men of Company C gathered in the Municipal Hall. 23 out of the 26 were wounded. Command went to the highest ranking soldier, Sgt Frank Betron, who is believed to have been romantically engaged with a local woman of Balangiga named Casiana Nacionales. Some sources refer to her as Geronima Nacionales, a reference to Geronimo Goyaałé — Apache medicine man famous at that time for leading raids against the US Army and the Mexican Army. Geronimo’s name would later be a sort of war cry for American paratroopers in World War II.
This Geronima of Balangiga, whatever her relations with Sgt. Betron, was present at the battle. Gina Apostol’s semi-fictional telling honors her as follows:
A woman, they say, stood outside the church. At the sound of the bells she raised her rosary. She waved it over her head, like a lasso, the prayed-for noose of the Americans. And she waved her holy lasso and began whooping like Geronimo.
2 other male Geronimo’s are listed among the 103 Filipino names on the Balangiga Encounter Monument. Geronimo is another form of the name Jerome found in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
Sgt. Betron oversaw the men collecting the dead and wounded before the Hall. Weapons and ammo were secured, as was the American flag from a pole erected in the plaza; whatever couldn’t be carried was to be destroyed or made useless. One boat carried food rations.
Cpl. Irish returned to the Municipal Hall. After killing a Filipino who had surprised him after playing dead and grappling him, Irish surveyed the arms and found most of them fully loaded, but locked. As noted earlier, the Filipinos had been untrained in the use of Krag-Jorgensen rifles.
The sights I saw while up in those quarters could not be described on paper. Blood just seemed to pour through the floor. As I was going up the steps I saw Williams sitting upright on the stairs with his eyes wide open. I went up to him and asked him if he was hurt. I then shook him and as I did he rolled downstairs. He had been dead for some time. He was one of the men on the battleship Olympic at the bombardment of Manila with Dewey and had a medal of honor for bravery.
Trumpeter G.E. Meyer had also earlier observed “blood flowing in streams through the bamboo floor of the hut” when soldiers and natives had been “in death grips for possession of rifles and bolos.”
Bolts were removed from rifles and thrown into the water. Company C attempted to burn both the Municipal Hall and the Church but failed to set the fires before being driven to cover by gunfire from the trees.
The westernmost end of the fight, behind the church, had reached the river, where Company C secured five baluto boats, also known as bangka boats. They used these to paddle from the river to the coast, and then West along the coast to American-occupied Basey [BAH-see].
The fight wasn’t over on the water
The five boats weren’t able to stay together, and in fact were hardly able to stay afloat. One was sent ahead and got lost. Others couldn’t be bailed quickly enough to stay above the water. The Filipinos continued to pursue by boat and continually launched new boats from the shore. Perhaps they were signaled by a series of conch shell horn blowers. Meyer recalled,
The shore was lined with fires. The hideous sound of the conch shells was hardly ever silent. Grimly we paddled on. There was not a single star in the heavens. Both the remaining boats were leaking and all the survivors who were conscious were bailing as fast as their weak, trembling hands would let them.
Company C had fought since sunrise. And paddled until 4am. They had brief stops ashore but each time were chased off by Filipinos with rifles, bolos, and spears.
It was at the darkest hour, just before the dawn, the sentry shook himself severely as he stoof on guard on the Moro cotta, a relic of recent practical days, that rises out of the sea by the convent of Basey. Try as he might, however, he could not shake off that sound. Still it came to his ears — American voices, speaking in familiar accents out upon the shoal.
“A man should not be allowed to stay out here more than two years,” the sentry muttered, as he pinched himself and brought down his rifle with an awakening whack. “If we do, it ain’t our fault. We ain’t worth shucks no more than g**g**s.”
But, as he turned to pace his beat, a voice, apparently that of a child, right at his feet, murmured wearily in a monotonous tone devoid of emotion, “Help, for Christ’s sake! For Christ’s sake, help.”
~survivor Dr. G. E. Meyers, published by James O. Taylor, 1931
On the 3rd of April, 2019 Representative of Nebraska Don Bacon addressed Congress on the return of the Balangiga Bells to the Philippines after over 100 years. He concluded by honoring Company C and Adolph Gamlin.
He mustered out of the Army in 1903 at Fort Niagara in New York as Sergeant Gamlin and returned to Nebraska, married, had three children before his wife’s untimely death. Adolph remarried and today his daughter, E. Jean Wall from that marriage, carries on his memory. Over the years she has accumulated the single most complete library on Balangiga and its military history. Included are many letters left to her by her father. He was her hero, and now he is mine too.
Adolph Gamlin died in 1969 at age 92. Today he is at rest at the historic Wyuka Cemetery in Nebraska City. The diligent research of the “three sailors” found there were many heroes of the battle, valiant men never fully recognized. Gamlin was one of them. Today I am honored to capture this story to ensure it is never forgotten and available in our nation’s archives so others may know their story for generations to come.
A Filipino song is still sung by performers today that carries the story of Balangiga after the Encounter: “Inday”
Inday Inday nakain ka?
Han kasunog han Balangiga
Pito katuig an pag-laga
An asu waray kita-a.
Lady Lady, where were you?
When Balangiga was burning
It lasted seven years of fires,
It’s hard to see the smoke.
Performed by Juan de La Cruz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTMf2m_ovw
https://open.spotify.com/track/45gTdP6zsjdm22JHegysB0?si=b6fc4388ac8e4909
Though neither side of the event, nor even the war itself, is well-known to Americans today, at that time the war was at the center of American attention. According to Luzviminda Francisco,
“The war for conquest of the Philippines was not a popular one in the United States… The treaty to annex the Philippines passed the Senate by only one vote and William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1900, declared imperialism to be the paramount issue of the campaign.”
American newspapers named “The Balangiga Massacre” as America’s greatest defeat since Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn (25th of June, 1876), in which the Lakota, Dakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho First Nations defeated the U.S. Army.
Like many officers of the 9th Regiment, one veteran of the colonial wars in the “Wild” West would be sent by Teddy Roosevelt to seek revenge on the Waray people.
FOLLOW-UPS:
Camp Connell, Nov 5th, 1901
Crossing of Samar, Jan 20th, 1902
SOURCES and LINKS
Apostol, Gina. (2018). Insurrecto. Soho Press, Inc. Book.
https://ginaapostol.com/about
Borrinaga, Rolando O. (2003). The Balangiga Conflict Revisited. New Day Publishers. Book.
https://philippinebookshop.com/shop/ols/products/the-balangiga-conflict-revisited-by-rolando-borrinaga
Couttie, Bob. (2004). Hang the Dogs: The True Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre. New Day Publishers. Book.
https://bobcouttie.wordpress.com/
Couttie, Bob (2014). Hang the Dogs: The True Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre. Universal Media. E-book.
https://www.amazon.com/Hang-Dogs-Tragic-Balangiga-Massacre-ebook/dp/B00HZN1UAY
Taylor, James. O (ed.) (1931). The Massacre of Balangiga: Being an Authentic Account by Several of the Few Survivors. McCarn Printing Co. Book.
Digitized by Google, Original from University of Wisconsin?
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062156351&view=1up&seq=1&skin=2021
Shirmer, Daniel B. & Shalom, Stephen Rosskamm (eds.). (1987). The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. South End Press. Book.
Akiboh, Alvita. (before April 2019). The “Massacre” and the Aftermath: Remembering Balangiga and The War in the Philippines. Article.
https://ushistoryscene.com/article/balangiga/
PROUD TO RETURN THE BALANGIGA BELLS TO PHILIPPINES. From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
https://www.congress.gov/116/crec/2019/04/03/modified/CREC-2019-04-03-pt1-PgE394-3.htm
The Minneapolis journal. [volume], September 30, 1901, Image 1
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045366/1901-09-30/ed-1/seq-1/
May 5, 1902. “Kill everyone over ten.” — Gen. Jacob H. Smith
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o274576
