A month later he was killed in a battle on the island of Mactan against native warriors. The survivors of his command continued west and returned to Spain. There are more than 100 different languages and dialects spoken in the Philippines. 15 million Filipinos speak Tagalog, and English is understood by 13 million. The missionaries introduced Christianity and attempted to unify the many peoples and islands under a central government. The prosperity of the Philippines depended on the exchange of New Spain's (now Mexico) silver for silk from China. Chinese capitalists immigrants produced mestizos and helped produce a distinctive new culture (Republic of the Philippines 5). In the 1700s, the empire of Spain crumbled. Open trade was available and led to the emergence of a local wealthy class. For its education, the wealthy class went to Europe and got an education there. In the 1860s, there was discontentment with the Spanish rule. Jose Rizal started a peaceful reform under colonial rule but was later executed. He was a well-educated man who studied in Spain and traveled in many Europeans country (History of the Philippines 3). His death started a revolution under Andres Bonifacio. Hostilities broke out again in 1897, ending with an armistice, based on the promise of reforms, agreed on between the revolutionaries and the Spanish authorities. While this was going on, the United States and Spain declared war against each other as a result of hostilities that broke out over the matter of Cuba. In 1898 the American battleship, USS Maine, exploded and sank in Havana harbor under mysterious circumstances with the loss of 260 men (Brinkley 613).
Voros 3.
As the tension with Spain raised, Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, strengthened the navy's Pacific troop and instructed its commander, George Dewey, to attack Spanish naval forces in the Philippines, a colony of Spain, in the event of war.