What Filipino leader fought alongside the U.S. against Spain?

The Filipino leader who fought alongside the United States against Spain was Emilio Aguinaldo. A revolutionary general, Aguinaldo led Filipino forces during the Philippine Revolution and returned to the Philippines in 1898 with American assistance.

As Spain and the United States went to war, Aguinaldo’s forces attacked Spanish positions in the Philippines. His troops helped capture territory around Manila and tied down Spanish forces while the U.S. Asiatic Squadron, commanded by Commodore George Dewey, destroyed the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.

Aguinaldo declared Philippine independence on June 12, 1898, and became president of a revolutionary government. The partnership with the United States soon broke down, however. Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, and Filipino nationalists rejected American rule. The Philippine-American War began in 1899, placing Aguinaldo against his former wartime partners. Andrés Bonifacio was also a Filipino revolutionary, but he was executed before Aguinaldo’s 1898 alliance with the United States; José Rizal had been executed by Spain in 1896.