Note 14 — Chapter II · Dewey and Aguinaldo

Thawed into theorizing by these indubitably genuine evidences of a nation’s high regard, the man of action tried to help the nation out. He said he had used the Filipinos as the Federal troops used the negroes in the Civil War. Senator Patterson struck this suggestion amidships and sunk it with the remark that the negroes were expecting freedom. Admiral Dewey had said “The Filipinos were slaves too” and considered him their liberator.14 But he never did elaborate on the new definition of freedom which had followed in the wake of his ships to Manila, viz., that Freedom does not necessarily mean freedom from alien domination, but only a change of masters deemed by the new master beneficial to the “slave.”