8 Dreadful Acts From US Presidents
4. William McKinley Uses Concentration Camps
When the Spanish-American war ended in 1898, the Philippines became something of an issue for president William McKinley. During the war Filipinos were also fighting the Spanish for control of the Philippines. The war ended with the Spanish giving the US control of their former imperial conquests like Cuba, Guam and the Philippines.
When you're fighting for the self determination of your country just to find out control has shifted from one party to another it is liable to get you a bit hot under the collar. Almost as soon as the war with Spain had ended another war with the Philippines had begun.
President William McKinley's reasoning for keeping control of the Philippines was down to the belief that he felt the revolutionaries would not be able to effectivly self govern.
He portrayed it as an act of charity, once stating: 'There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.'
Methods used and seemingly approved by the war department under McKinley were torture and scorched earth campaigns, and the worst was the use of concentration camps where civilian Filipinos died of disease and starvation.