Moroland 1899-1906 America's First Attempt to Transform an Islamic Society

Moroland is the lost history of the once-famed struggle between the United States Army and the wild Moros, the Muslims of the southern Philippine islands. Lasting over two decades, it was this country s first sustained encounter with a volatile mixture of nation building, insurgency, counterinsurgency, and militant Islamism. The 2009 revision adds six new chapters and expands the period covered from 1906 to 1920. An unanticipated byproduct of the Spanish-American War, the task of subduing and then civilizing the Land of the Moros was delegated to the U.S. Army. Working through the traditional ruling hierarchy and respecting an ancient system of laws based on the Qur an, Moro Province became an autonomous, military-governed Islamic colony within a much larger, overwhelmingly Christian territory, the Philippine Islands. An initially successful occupation, it transitioned to a grand experiment: an audacious plan to transform and remake Moro society, values, and culture in an American image; placing the Moros on an uncertain and ill-defined path towards inclusion in an eventual Western-style democracy. But the Moros reacted with obstinate and unyielding resistance to what they perceived as a deliberate attack on the religion of Islam and a way of life ordained by God. This ignited a constant stream of battles and expeditions known in U.S. Army history as the Moro Campaigns and lasting more than a decade. In violence and ferocity they may have equaled, if not surpassed, the more famous late-19th Century Indian Wars of the Great Plains. It also led to the creation of the fabled Moro Constabulary, small contingents of native troops led by American, European, and Filipino officers. The text is supplemented by an extensive photographic gallery from the period, available for viewing online at www.morolandhistory.com. The backdrop is a bustling, raucous, newly-prosperous nation finding its way as a world and imperial power. But with this new-found status came a near-religious belief that the active spread of America s institutions, values, and form of government, even when achieved through coercion or force, would create a better world. A subtext is a deep and bitter rivalry between two of its most prominent players, Capt. John J. Pershing and General Leonard Wood, born only one month apart, each championing markedly opposed military philosophies. Eventually they would compete to lead one-million American doughboys into the cauldron of the world s first Great War. Few Americans are aware that a century later the U.S. military has quietly returned to Moroland, to battle radical Islamist terrorism; using Army Green Berets, Navy Seals, and other elite forces. It is the smallest of the fronts of the global war on terror and the least-covered or critically examined. It leads the reader to an obvious question: are we avoiding or are we repeating our own past?