ba, had it seemed in any way practicable. Unfortunately, however, the
Filipinos did not constitute a nation but only a congeries of peoples
and tribes of differing race and origin, whom nearly four centuries of
Spanish rule had not been able to make live at peace with one another.
Some were Christians, some Mohammedans, some heathen savages; some wore
European clothes, some none at all. The particular tribe which formed
the chief support of Aguinaldo, the Tagalogs, comprised less than one
half of the population of the island of Luzon. The United States had
taken the islands largely because it did not see any one else to whom it
could properly shift the burden. The shoulders of the Tagalogs did not
seem broad enough for the responsibility.

The United States prepared, therefore, to carry on the task which it
had assumed, while Aguinaldo, with his army circling Manila, prepared to
dispute its title. On February 4, 1899, actual hostilities broke out.
By this time Aguinaldo had a capital at Malolos, thirty miles north of
Manila, a government, thirty or forty thousand troops, and an influence
which he was extending throughout the islands by means of secret
organizations and superstitious appeals. This seemed a puny strength to
put forth against the United States but various circumstances combined
to make the contest less unequal than it seemed, and the outcome was
probably more in doubt than that in the war with Spain.

The United States had at the moment but fourteen thousand men in
the islands, under the command of General Otis. Some of these were
volunteers who had been organized to fight Spain and who could not be
held after the ratification of peace. Congress had, indeed, provided
for an increase in the regular army, but not sufficient to provide the
"40,000 effectives for the field," whom Otis had requested in August,
1899. There were, of course, plenty of men available in America for
service in the Philippines, and finally twelve regiments of volunteers
were raised, two of which were composed of negroes. Aguinaldo's strength
lay in the configuration of the country, in its climate, which for four
centuries had prevented a complete conquest by the Spaniards, and in
the uncertainty which he knew existed as to how far the American people
would support a war waged apparently for conquest, against the wishes of
the Filipinos. On the other hand, the chief advantages of the American
forces lay in Aguinaldo's lack of arms and