A Study of Filipino Colonial Nationalist and Their Involvement in the American Colonial Projects

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In official Philippine history, Filipino nationalists have been described as true liberators from American colonialism, which started in 1898 and ended in 1946. Contrary to such a conventional presupposition, however, their economic foundation in land such as land accumulation, as the rural elite and landlords, was intensively strengthened by and incorporated into the American colonial state system. Under this fluctuating circumstance, their primary concern was not how to cope with agrarian problems triggered and worsened by increasing land tenancy and landless peasants in rural areas ; rather it was how to keep their economic benefits and advantages intact. This mode of colonial cooperation, arranged between the Americans and the Filipino nationalist elites, which greatly benefited the emerging Filipino elite class, could not help but widen gaps in region, class, and ethnicity, eventually leading to serious divisions in the Filipino nation.