First Battle of Bud Dajo

1906 massacre of the Moro Rebellion

The First Battle of Bud Dajo, also known as the Moro Crater Massacre, was a counterinsurgency action fought by the United States Army against the Moro people in March 1906, during the Moro Rebellion in the southwestern Philippines. Whether the occupants of Bud Dajo were hostile to U. S. forces is disputed, as inhabitants of Jolo Island had previously used the crater, which they considered sacred, as a place of refuge during Spanish assaults. Major Hugh Scott, the district governor of Sulu Province, where the incident occurred, recounted that those who fled to the crater "declared they had no intention of fighting, ran up there only in fright, [and] had some crops planted and desired to cultivate them." The description of the engagement as a "battle" is disputed because of both the overwhelming firepower of the attackers and the lopsided casualties. Author Vic Hurley wrote, "By no stretch of the imagination could Bud Dajo be termed a 'battle'". Mark Twain commented, "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people." A higher percentage of Moros were killed (99 percent) than in other incidents now considered massacres, such as the Wounded Knee Massacre. Some of those killed were women and children. Moro men in the crater who had arms possessed melee weapons. While fighting was limited to ground action on Jolo, the use of naval gunfire contributed significantly to the overwhelming firepower brought to bear against the Moros. During the engagement, 750 men and officers, under the command of Colonel J. W. Duncan, assaulted the volcanic crater of Bud Dajo (Tausūg: Būd Dahu), which was populated by 800 to 1,000 Tausug villagers. According to Hermann Hagedorn (who was writing prior to World War II), the position held by the Moros was "the strongest which hostiles in the Philippines have ever defended against American assault." Although the engagement was a victory for the American forces, it was also an unmitigated public relations disaster. Whether a battle or massacre, it was certainly the bloodiest of any engagement of the Moro Rebellion, with only six of the hundreds of Moro surviving the bloodshed. Unreliable source: date=February 2019 Estimates of American casualties range from fifteen to twenty one killed and seventy five wounded. These reforms, coupled with the general resentment of foreign Christian occupiers, created a tense and hostile atmosphere during Wood's tenure, and the heaviest and bloodiest fighting during the American occupation of Mindanao and Sulu Province took place under his watch. Although Moro hostilities died down during the latter days of Wood's governorship (the tenure of Wood's replacement, General Tasker H. Bliss, was a period of relative peace), it was in this tense atmosphere of Moro resentment that the events leading to the Battle of Bud Dajo played out. According to US President Theodore Roosevelt's friend and biographer Hermann Hagedorn, the Moros living in Bud Dajo were "the rag tag and bobtail remnants of two or three revolts, the black sheep of a dozen folds, rebels against the poll tax, die hards against the American occupation, outlaws recognizing no datto (ruler) and condemned by the stable elements among the Moros themselves."

The chain of events leading to Bud Dajo began when a Moro named Pala ran amok in British held Borneo. (The Moros differentiate between the religious rite of the juramentado and the strictly secular violence of the amoks; Pala's rampage was of the latter.) Pala then went to ground at his home near the city of Jolo (the seat of the Sultan of Sulu), on the island of Jolo. Colonel Hugh L. Scott, the governor of the District of Sulu, attempted to arrest Pala, but Pala's datu opposed this move. During the resulting fight, Pala escaped. He avoided capture for several months, setting up his own cotta and becoming a datu in his own right. Wood led an expedition against Pala but was ambushed by Moros from the Bud Dajo area with the help of Pala. Wood beat off the ambushers, and many of them found refuge in the volcanic crater of Bud Dajo. Wood determined that the Moros held too strong a position to assault with the forces at hand, and so he withdrew. Bud Dajo lies six miles (10 km) from the city of Jolo and is an extinct volcano, 2,100 feet (640 m) above sea level, steep, conical, and with thickly forested slopes. Only three major paths led up the mountain, and the thick growth kept the Americans from cutting new paths. However, there were many minor paths, known only to the Moros, which would allow them to resupply even if the main paths were blocked. The crater at the summit is in circumference and easily defended. Scott was worried that an attack on Bud Dajo would reveal just how easily defended it was, encouraging repeats of the standoff in the future. Unfortunately, occupants of Bud Dajo began raiding nearby Moro settlements for women and cattle. Although the datus of Jolo continued to condemn the occupants of Bud Dajo, there began to develop popular support of a general uprising among the Moro commoners of Jolo.

On March 2, 1906, Wood ordered Colonel J. W. Duncan of the 6th Infantry Regiment (stationed at Zamboanga, the provincial capital) to lead an expedition against Bud Dajo. Duncan and Companies K and M took the transport Wright to Jolo. 110 men of the 19th Infantry and 6 sailors from the gunboat Pampanga." He failed, and the Americans drew up into three columns and proceeded up the three main mountain paths. The columns were under the command of Major Omar Bundy, Captain Rivers, and Captain Lawton. At 0700, March 7, Major Bundy's detachment encountered a barricade blocking the path, 500 feet (150 m) below the summit. Snipers picked off Moros, and the barricade was shelled with rifle grenades. The barricade was then assaulted in a bayonet charge. Some of the Moros staged a strong defense, then charged with kalises (the traditional wavy edged sword of the Moros) and spear. About 200 Moros died in this engagement, and Major Bundy's detachment suffered heavy casualties. Captain Rivers' detachment also encountered a barricade and took it after several hours of fighting, during which Rivers himself was severely wounded by a spear. Captain Lawton's detachment advanced up a poor path, so steep in places that the Americans proceeded on hands and knees. They were harassed by Moros hurling boulders and occasionally rushing to attack hand to hand with krises. Lawton finally took the defensive trenches on the crater rim by storm. The press' account of the "Moro Crater Massacre" fell on receptive ears. There were still deep misgivings among the American public about America's role during the Spanish–American War and the stories of atrocities carried out during the Philippine–American War. The public had also been largely unaware of the continuing violence in the Moro Province, and were shocked to learn that killing continued. In response to criticism, Wood's explanation of the high number of women and children killed stated that the women of Bud Dajo dressed as men and joined in the combat, and that the men used children as living shields. Hagedorn supports this explanation, by giving an account of Lieutenant Gordon Johnston, who was severely wounded by a woman warrior. Wood badly needed military laurels, since he had gone through an uphill battle in the United States Senate over his appointment to the rank of major general, which was finally confirmed in March 1904. Although Wood had served as an administrator in Cuba, he had seen only a hundred days of field service during the Spanish–American War. Wood had been promoted over the heads of many more senior officers, bringing charges of favoritism against President and fellow Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt. Even though his promotion had been confirmed, Wood's reputation still suffered. Wood's willingness to take responsibility for Bud Dajo did much to improve his reputation within the army. Wood argued that besieging (surrounding) Bud Dajo would have been impossible, given the ample supplies of the rebels, the 11 mile (18 km) circumference of the mountain, the thickly forested terrain, and the existence of hidden paths up the mountainside. During the Second Battle of Bud Dajo, in December 1911, General "Black Jack" Pershing (the third and final military governor of the Moro Province) did succeed in besieging Bud Dajo, by cutting a lateral trail which encircled the mountain, downhill from the crater rim. This cut off the Moros in the crater from the hidden mountainside paths. However, the tactical situation facing Pershing in 1911 was far different from that facing Wood in 1906. The incident caused outrage among the native people, as Bud Dajo is considered a sacred site to them.

The incident was brought up by President Rodrigo Duterte to criticize America and President Barack Obama in 2016, leading to a cancellation of a planned meeting with Obama; Duterte apologized next day. Duterte cited the incident a second time in criticizing America while calling for the exit of American troops. In 2015, the Moro National Liberation Front published an open letter to President Obama demanding to know why America was supporting Filipino colonialism against the Moro Muslim people, the Filipino "war of genocide", and atrocities against Moros. The letter stated that the Moro people have resisted and fought against the atrocities of Filipino, Japanese, American, and Spanish invaders including the Moro Crater massacre at Bud Dajo, committed by Americans.