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The Bates Treaty

Madge Kho
(The author thanks Ernie Garcia, former director of ABS/CBN in the Philippines, and Jim Kaplan for their editorial
comments.)
A relatively unknown but significant detail in Philippine history is the Bates Treaty, signed
between the U.S. and the Sultanate of Sulu on August 20, 1899. This article looks into the
background of that treaty and its consequences.
The Filipinos had been waging their War of Independence from Spain when the U.S. "won" the
Spanish-American War in the battle of Manila Bay. Despite the opposition of anti-imperialist
forces, the U.S. took possession of the Philippines. Disappointed by and bitter about this
unexpected and unforeseen move by the country he had considered an ally, Filipino General
Emilio Aguinaldo then turned the war into the Philippine American War. Now labeling the
ongoing independence war an "insurrection," the U.S. proceeded to establish control of the
Philippine Islands through force. Filipino forces were increasing in the north and becoming a
growing concern of the U.S. military. In order to concentrate its limited forces in the north, and
to hold at bay the Moro resistance to its colonization in the Sulu Archipelago, the United States
resorted to the device of a treaty. Known as the Bates Treaty, it was the first step towards the
dissolution of Moro (Muslim population of the southern Philippines) sovereignty and the
dismantling of the Sulu Sultanate.
The Bates Treaty had promised to uphold mutual respect between the U.S. and the Sultanate of
Sulu, to respect Moro autonomy, and to not give or sell Sulu or any part of it to any other nation.
In addition, under this treaty the Sultan and his datus (tribal chiefs) were to receive monthly
payments in return for flying the American flag and for allowing the U.S. the right to occupy
lands on the islands.
A year prior, in December 1898, and with the Tausug (people of Jolo and neighboring islands)
unaware that they were among the pawn peoples whose fates were being decided at a table
thousands of miles away, the Treaty of Paris was signed, which included their beloved string of
islands. In the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam to the U.S.; and for $20
million the entire Philippines. Included in this cession were the territories of Mindanao and Sulu,
which actually had not been in full Spanish control. About two years later, on November 7, 1900,
the U.S. paid an additional $100,000 to Spain to include in the 1898 cession the Sulu islands
stretching as far west as Sibutu and Cagayan de Sulu.
After their defeat by the U.S., the Spaniards turned over a garrison on the island of Siasi,
southwest of Jolo, to the Sultan, who personally went from his seat in Maimbung on the island of
Jolo to Siasi to oversee the transfer. It was not until May 1899 that the U.S. sent troops to take
over the Spanish fort in Jolo. The Americans had not been able to get troops to Jolo sooner
because, as General. E.S. Otis wrote to Admiral Dewey on May 14, 1899, they could not afford
to send any troops outside the Luzon area.
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The fighting in Luzon was peaking at this time. In the south, the Filipino revolutionary forces
had already taken over from the Spaniards a fort in Zamboanga at the southern tip of the island
of Mindanao. General Otis estimated it would require 2,000 men to retake the Zamboanga fort.
The Spanish fort in the town of Jolo was much smaller and, he surmised, would require only 600
men for its defense after the Spaniards left. "[It] would be a good scheme to send the garries to
Jolo immediately, or the Moros would destroy the fortifications and guns and turn them upon us
when we appear." So, U.S. troops were immediately sent to Jolo. It was a timely move. The
Moros, as he feared, could easily have taken over the fort from the Spaniards. The Sultan had a
standing army of 26,000 men.
When the Americans arrived in Jolo, they told Jamalul Kiram II, the sultan of Sulu, that the U.S.
had taken over the affairs of Spain and asked the Sultan to recognize the U.S. in the place of
Spain, and honor the 1878 provisions of the treaty, which the Sultan had signed with Spain. But
the Sultan refused, stating that the U.S. was a different entity and that the U.S. should enter into a
new treaty with the Sultanate.
The Spanish Treaty of Peace, signed on July 22, 1878, was the last one signed by the Sultan
during the Spanish occupation of the town of Jolo. The treaty had allowed Spain to set up a small
garrison, covering about 15 acres, in the town of Jolo. Outside the wall, the Sultan still ruled.
Scholars fluent in both Spanish and Arabic found the treaty to have translation flaws, which
would have implications in the 1898 cession of the Philippine Islands to the U.S. The Spanish
version states that Spain had sovereignty over Sulu, whereas the Tausug version describes a
protectorate relationship rather than a dependency of Spain. The treaty says that the customs,
laws, and religion of the Moros would not be subjected to Spanish jurisdiction. It made Jolo a
protectorate of Spain. This treaty also provided the sultan and his datus monthly payments of
250-1500 Mexican pesos. The sultan had the mistaken impression that the agreement with the
Spaniards would be similar to the one he signed six months earlier with the British North Borneo
Chartered Company, which paid him $5,000 annually for the use of his North Borneo territories
(now Sabah). (The Philippines, under President Diosdado Macapagal in the 1960s, tried to
reclaim Sabah in the world court. This continues to be a source of irritation between the
Philippine and Malaysian governments.)
In place of the Spanish treaty, the sultan presented Brig. General John Bates with a 16-point
proposal. The proposal allowed the U.S. to fly its flag side by side with the Sultanate's and
required the U.S. to continue monthly payments to the sultan and his datus. The U.S. was not to
occupy any of the land without the permission of the sultan. The sultan's proposal was rejected
by Bates, because it did not acknowledge U.S. sovereignty.
Bates then countered with his 15-point proposal, which included the recognition of U.S.
sovereignty over Sulu and its dependencies, the guarantee of non-interference with Moro religion
and customs and a pledge that the "U.S. will not sell the island of Jolo or any other island of the
Sulu Archipelago to any foreign nation without the consent of the Sultan."
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The sultan resisted Bates's offer for several months, but he could not get unanimous support from
his ruma bichara (ruling council) to press for his demands to the Americans. Because of this
internal dissension, led by his own prime minister and adviser Hadji Butu and two of his top
ranking datus, Datu Jolkanairn and Datu Kalbi, the sultan on August 20, 1899 conceded to the
Americans. The treaty terms were much more favorable to the U.S. than what the Spanish treaty
provided. According to Sixto Orosa, "The people did not wish to come under American
sovereignty; but Hadji Butu recognizing the folly of armed resistance, exerted all his influence to
prevent another useless and bloody war." Hadji Butu and his son, Hadji Gulamu Rasul would
later become favorites of northern Filipinos for opposing the Sultans agama court and for
favoring integration of Moros into the Philippine republic.
By this time, the Sultanate was financially drained and weakened. From1830 when Spain cut off
the lucrative Manila-Jolo trade, because it felt threatened by the sultans friendly relations with
other European powers like Germany, France and Great Britain, it had to fight Spains
unrelenting attacks to subjugate it. Class differences was also beginning to tear at the seams of
the monarchy. The sultan never gave up his scheming against the U.S. despite his datus
friendliness to the Americans. John Bass of Harpers Weekly reported that the sultan was
importing a large cache of rifles and ammunition "evidently to maintain his sovereignty." This
would later be borne out by a series of cotta (bunker or trench) wars against the Americans by
the sultans subjects. This might not seem plausible as the sultan had denied any knowledge of
his subjects doings when the U.S. accused him of promoting an insurrection against the U.S.
But, in August 1999, I received an e-mail from a friend of Ben Han, a Jolo native, who informed
me that Ben Hans grandfather was an Afghan mercenary hired by the sultan as an officer in the
fight against the Americans between 1906-1913.
Whether the Bates treaty made a difference in later years, it is worth mentioning that there
was a very critical translation error from English to Tausug. The word sovereignty was not used
anywhere in the Tausug version. Article I of the Treaty in the Tausug version states "The
support, aid, and protection of the Jolo Island and Archipelago are in the American nation,"
whereas the English version read "The sovereignty of the United States over the whole
Archipelago of Jolo and its dependencies is declared and acknowledged." Najeeb Saleeby, an
American of Lebanese descent who was assigned to Mindanao and Sulu, caught the translation
flaws and charged Charlie Schuck, son of a German businessman, for deliberately mistranslating
the treaty. Schuck was acquitted of all legal charges. Whether mistranslated, the wording of the
treaty provided the justification for the U.S. decision to incorporate the Sulu Archipelago into the
Philippine state in 1946.
The Bates Treaty did not last very long. After the U.S. had completed its goal of suppressing the
resistance in northern Philippines, it unilaterally abrogated the Bates Treaty on March 2, 1904,
claiming the Sultan had failed to quell Moro resistance and that the treaty was a hindrance to the
effective colonial administration of the area. Payments to the Sultan and his datus were also
stopped. But in reality, Bates never intended to ratify the treaty. As Bates would later confess,
the agreement was merely a temporary expedient to buy time until the northern forces were
defeated. "The Treaty was made at a time when nearly all the state volunteers had been sent
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home and other troops had not arrived to take their places. It was a critical time, as all the troops
were needed in Luzon. The Government could not afford to stir up trouble with the Moros. The
Treaty was made as a temporary expedient to avoid trouble. It has served its purpose for three
years, and there is now no reason why the treaty which was but a temporary measure at a critical
time, should not be changed in accordance with the conditions."
The sultan protested vehemently and payments were reinstated. He argued that he could not stop
the Moro attacks against the Americans, because the U.S. had imposed poll and land taxes on the
population, a practice which the Moros were not used to. In a letter to Governor General Luke
Wright in April 1904, the sultan urged the Americans not to "put yokes on our necks that we
cannot bear, and don't make us do what is against our religion, and don't ask us to pay poll tax
forever and ever as long as there is sun and moon, and don't ask taxes for land which are our
rights of the Moro people, including all that grows in Jolo and its islands."
Now securely in a position of power and strength after the defeat of the northern Filipinos, the
U.S. launched a determined campaign to suppress the ever-defiant Tausugs, who were as
opposed to U.S. rule as they had been to the Spanish occupation. Known as the Moro
Campaigns, this ferocious war between American soldiers and Moros continued in the south of
the Philippines for the next thirteen years, making it the longest war in U.S. history. It was a
bloody war; neither side took any quarter, nor gave any. During its course, two infamous
massacres occurred on the island of Jolo: Bud Dajo in1906 and Bud Bagsak in 1913.
The Battle of Bud Dajo on March 7, 1906 was a consequence of the U.S. "Policy of
Disarmament" as implemented by General John "Black Jack" Pershing. The Moro Wars taught
the U.S., albeit costly, the inseparability of a Tausug and his weapon. In turn, what the Moros
had to reckon with in the American soldier was the motivation that had fueled the Indian wars in
America. The cry "A good Indian is a dead Indian!" became "A good Moro is a dead Moro!"
Passions raged and collided, and blood flowed during that crimson period in Jolo. In the Dajo
Massacre, some 900 men, women, and children were slaughtered atop an extinct volcano in the
municipality of Danag on the island of Jolo. The Americans spared not a single life of the brave
Tausugs who defended their mountain retreat -- not a man, woman or infant! Though the bloody
campaigns against the Moros officially ended in 1915, U.S. troops continued to encounter
sporadic Moro attacks for the next two decades.
Recognizing a flaw in the wording of the Bates Treaty, Governor Frank Carpenter asked the
sultan, his heirs, and his council to sign another agreement with the U.S. on March 22, 1915--this
time, for the Sultan and his heirs to abdicate their claims to the throne. Article IX of the treaty
refers to the "government of the sultan." More importantly, the new agreement was meant to put
an end to the existing parallel government of the sultan; the sultan continued to rule as before
exercising his powers in all aspects of Moro life, collecting taxes, and trying civil and criminal
cases. When the U.S. protested the sultans practice, he simply demurred that his status as
sovereign head was reinstated when the U.S. abrogated the treaty in 1904. Thus, Carpenter wrote
in his 1916 report that it was "necessary and opportune definitely to extinguish all claims of the
sultan to any degree of temporal sovereignty."
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Implementation of the 1915 Agreement was further delayed by negotiations over what the sultan
and his heirs would receive in exchange for their giving up their temporal powers. The
negotiations which concluded in May 1919 gave the sultan a life-time payment of P12,000 per
annum and allowed him and his heirs the usufruct use of public lands. Carpenter was confident
that with the settlement final, the sultan would now cooperate with the U.S. by fully recognizing
U.S. sovereignty over Sulu. In his 1919 Report, Carpenter stated that "this satisfactory
conclusion has resulted in the forward advance of the policy of amalgamation and in the
complete triumph of the ideals of the Government and the Filipino people."
As the U.S. was preparing to give the Philippines commonwealth status in preparation for its
independence in 1946, some Moro leaders favored integration into the republic but majority from
both Sulu and Mindanao protested the plan to incorporate their homeland into the Philippine
state. "Our public land must not be given to people other than the Moros," they urged. "[I]f we
are deprived of our land, how can we then earn our own living? A statute should be enacted to
forbid others from taking over our land, a safe and reliable way to forestall a tragedy." But their
pleas fell on deaf ears. The U.S. went ahead and turned over the islands to Filipino hands. In
1946, contrary to its promise under the Bates Treaty "not to give or sell Sulu or any part of it to
any other nation," the U.S. incorporated Mindanao and Sulu against the will of the Moro people
into the state now known as the Philippine Republic.
(Madge Kho is a native of Jolo and presently resides in Boston, Massachusetts where she is co-
chair of the Friends of the Filipino People, an organization founded in 1973 to oppose U.S.
support for the Marcos dictatorship. Madge is also a director of the Jolo Culture and Historical
Society. She has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government.)