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Filipino revolutionaries led by Emilio Aguinaldo declare the Philippines independent after 300 years of Spanish domination during the Spanish-American War. Filipino revolutionaries and American troops had driven the Spanish out by mid-August, but Aguinaldo's aspirations for independence were shattered when the US legally seized the Philippines as part of its peace accord with Spain. 

In the second half of the 16th century, the Spanish invaded the Philippines, a huge island archipelago off the coast of Southeast Asia. Filipino priests, who hated Spanish control over the islands' Roman Catholic churches, were the first to rise up against Spanish rule. Intellectuals and the middle class in the Philippines began to demand independence in the late nineteenth century. In Manila, Philippines' capital on the island of Luzon, the Katipunan, a secret revolutionary group, was founded in 1892. The Spanish discovered the Katipunan's plans for uprising in August 1896, pushing the rebels to act prematurely. Revolts erupted all throughout Luzon, and Emilio Aguinaldo, then 28 years old, rose to the top of the insurgency in March 1897. The rebels were driven into the hills southeast of Manila by late 1897, and Aguinaldo reached an accord with the Spanish. Aguinaldo and his generals would accept exile in Hong Kong in exchange for financial compensation and a promise of reform in the Philippines. The Philippine Revolution came to an end when the rebel commanders left.

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