The Moro Rebellion (1899–1913) was an armed conflict between the Moro people and the United States military during the Philippine–American War.
The word "Moro" – the Spanish word for "Moor" – is a term for Muslim people who lived in the Southern Philippines, an area that includes Mindanao, Jolo and the neighboring Sulu Archipelago.
Background
The Moros have a 400-year history of resisting foreign rule. The violent armed struggle against the Spanish, against the Americans, against the Japanese, and against the Filipinos, is considered by current Moro leaders as part of the four centuries-long "national liberation movement" of the Bangsamoro (Moro Nation). This conflict persisted and developed into their current war for independence against the Philippine state. A "culture of jihad" emerged among the Moros due to the centuries-long war against the Spanish invaders.
The ethnic Moro population of the southern Philippines resisted both Spanish and United States colonization. The Moro areas of Western Mindanao have been the most rebellious areas in the Philippines along with Samar Island and Bicol Region. The Spaniards were restricted to a handful of coastal garrisons or Forts and they made occasional punitive expeditions into the vast interior regions. After a series of unsuccessful attempts during the centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines, Spanish forces occupied the abandoned city of Jolo, Sulu, the seat of the Sultan of Sulu, in 1876. The Spaniards and the Sultan of Sulu signed the Spanish Treaty of Peace on July 22, 1878. Control of the Sulu archipelago outside of the Spanish garrisons was handed to the Sultan. The treaty had translation errors: According to the Spanish-language version, Spain had complete sovereignty over the Sulu archipelago, while the Tausug version described a protectorate instead of an outright dependency. Despite the very nominal claim to the Moro territories, Spain ceded them to the United States in the Treaty of Paris which signaled the end of the Spanish–American War.
Following the American occupation of the Northern Philippines during 1899, Spanish forces in the Southern Philippines were abolished, and they retreated to the garrisons at Zamboanga and Jolo. American forces took control over the Spanish government in Jolo on May 18, 1899, and at Zamboanga in December 1899.
The Moros resisted the American colonizers, as they had against the Spanish before them. The Spanish, American, Japanese, and Philippine governments have all been fought against by the Muslims of Sulu and Mindanao.
Ottoman Empire's role
John Hay, the American Secretary of State, asked the ambassador to Ottoman Empire, Oscar Straus in 1899 to approach Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to request that the Sultan write a letter to the Moro Sulu Muslims of the Sulu Sultanate in the Philippines telling them to submit to American suzerainty and American military rule. Despite the sultan's "pan-Islamic" ideology, he readily aided the American forces because he felt no need to cause hostilities between the West and Muslims.
Abdul Hamid wrote the letter, which was sent to Mecca where two Sulu chiefs brought it home to Sulu. It was successful, and the "Sulu Mohammedans ... refused to join the insurrectionists and had placed themselves under the control of [the American] army, thereby recognizing American sovereignty." John P. Finley wrote that:After due consideration of these facts, the Sultan, as Caliph caused a message to be sent to the Mohammedans of the Philippine Islands forbidding them to enter into any hostilities against the Americans, inasmuch as no interference with their religion would be allowed under American rule. As the Moros have never asked more than that, it is not surprising, that they refused all overtures made, by Aguinaldo's agents, at the time of the Filipino insurrection. President McKinley sent a personal letter of thanks to Mr. Straus for the excellent work he had done, and said, its accomplishment had saved the United States at least twenty thousand troops in the field. If the reader will pause to consider what this means in men and also the millions in money, he will appreciate this wonderful piece of diplomacy, in averting a holy war.President McKinley did not mention the Ottoman Empire's role in the pacification of the Sulu Moros in his address to the first session of the Fifty-sixth Congress in December 1899 since the agreement with the Sultan of Sulu was not submitted to the Senate until December 18.
