The U.S. paid Spain $20 million to acquire the Philippines under the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
Signed on December 10, 1898, the treaty ended the Spanish-American War. Spain relinquished its claims to Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and transferred the Philippine archipelago in exchange for the $20 million payment.
The amount was presented partly as compensation for Spanish investments and improvements in the Philippines. American negotiators had debated whether to take only Manila or the island of Luzon, but President William McKinley ultimately demanded the entire archipelago. The treaty’s Article III specified both the cession and the payment.
The deal did not settle the Philippines’ future peacefully. Filipino revolutionaries, who had declared independence from Spain in 1898, opposed American rule. Fighting between Filipino and U.S. forces began in February 1899, starting the Philippine-American War. A later Treaty of Washington in 1900 clarified that certain outlying islands were also included in the transfer.