Observing the Imperial Transition: British Naval Reports on the Philippines, 1898-1901

Abstract

In 1898, the Philippines ceased to be a Spanish colony and were annexed by the United States, ignoring the Philippine expectation to gain national independence. Based on novel archival sources this article re-examines the experience of that imperial transition in the Philippines from British perspectives.

As the British had strong interests in the Philippines, when the Spanish-American War broke out, the British government sent a naval squadron to Manila in order to protect the lives and properties of its subjects, but also to report on everything that was taking place in the islands. The officers in that squadron became privileged observers of the transfer of sovereignty from the Spanish to the Americans, a process that extended from 1898 to 1903, and which the British saw not as a war for the independence of the Philippines, but rather as the handoff between two colonial governments.