For a while the Phillipines’ people were living in the golden age: the colonizing Spanish empire modernized the country’s economy, introduced trade with Europe, and took local farmers from a subsistence mode of existence to raising cash crops like tobacco and hemp. At the same time, however, the Phillipines’ educational reforms brought about a new class of educated elite, who did not take kindly to the Spanish treatment of them as second class citizens. A number of inciting publications and revolts followed, all suppressed, sometimes brutally, by the Spanish. Then they got a break when Spain became embroiled in a war with America.

On this day, June 12, 1898, after a naval ambush by an American fleet destroyed Spanish ships in Manila, Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine government-in-exile newly returned to his home in Cavite, proclaimed the independence of his country from Spain.

The U.S. would have left the Philippines to their own devices, if the other great European powers had not shown up vying for control over the territory. Not wishing to cede power to Europe in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. negotiated a purchase of the land for $20 million. The Philippines people had no voice in the decision, and swiftly took up arms in revolting for independence once more, this time against America.