Balangiga massacre in the context of 9th Infantry Regiment (United States)

Samar (/ˈsɑːmɑːr/ SAH-mar) is the third largest island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,924,651 as of the 2024 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas and its main language and ethnicity is Waray while its main religion is Roman Catholic. Since 1965, the island is divided into three provinces: Western Samar, Northern Samar, and Eastern Samar. The capitals of these provinces are, respectively, Catarman, Catbalogan, and Borongan., all part of the Eastern Visayas region. In commemoration of the establishment of these provinces, June 19 is celebrated as an annual holiday. The island was first sighted by Ferdinand Magellan on March 16, 1521. Although he did not land, other expeditions were made. Many names, such as Samal, Ibabao, and Tandaya, were given to the island prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1596. During the early days of Spanish occupation, Samar was under the jurisdiction of Cebu. In the Philippine–American War, Eugenio Daza led a successful attack against the United States Army, later called the Balangiga massacre. This attack led to the Pacification of Samar and deaths of 2,000 people.

In the American colonization of the Philippines, two uprisings were created; the former was the Pulajan movement which caused massacres in the country. The Battle off Samar was held off the island. In the martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, the Sag-od massacre was caused. After the martial law, the island still has the New People's Army rebellion. Samar is the easternmost island in the Visayas archipelago. The island lies to the northeast of Leyte and lies to the southeast of the Bicol Peninsula on Luzon. To the west is the Samar Sea, and to the north and east of Samar lies the Philippine Sea. The island has the Samar Island Natural Park and has numerous biological discoveries and forests.

The Pacification of Samar was a counterinsurgency operation initiated by General Adna Chaffee during the Philippine-American War, following the Balangiga massacre. General hostilities had largely ceased following the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the insurgent Philippine Republic, and his publication of a manifesto on April 10, 1901 acknowledging and accepting U.S. sovereignty throughout the Philippines.

General Vicente Lukban had been the commander, under Aguinaldo, of a guerilla force on the island of Samar and had, when offered the opportunity to surrender, replied that he intended to fight on to the end. In September, in an action that became known as the Balangiga massacre, Lukban's forces assisted by townspeople in a surprise uprising inflicted 54 killed and 18 wounded on a U.S. Army company garrisoning that town. Following this, General Jacob H. Smith was tasked with the pacification of Samar.

The Balangiga bells (Spanish: Campanas de Balangiga; Tagalog: Mga Batingaw ng Balangiga; Waray: Lingganay han Balangiga) are three church bells that were taken by the United States Army from the Church of San Lorenzo de Martir in Balangiga, Eastern Samar, Philippines, as war trophies after reprisals following the Balangiga massacre in 1901 during the Philippine–American War. One church bell was in the possession of the 9th Infantry Regiment at Camp Red Cloud, their base in South Korea, while two others were on a former base of the 11th Infantry Regiment at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

People representing the Catholic Church in the Philippines, the Philippine government, and the residents of Balangiga had sought to recover the bells since the late 1950s, but their efforts were met with frustration for decades. Progress in negotiations was made in 2018, and the bells finally returned to the Philippines on December 11, 2018, after 117 years.

Balangiga (IPA: [ˌbalaŋˈhɪga]), officially the Municipality of Balangiga (Waray: Bungto han Balangiga; Tagalog: Bayan ng Balangiga), is a municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 14,341 people.

Balangiga is the site of the Balangiga Encounter in 1901, which remains one of the longest-running and most controversial issues of the Philippine–American War.

General Jacob Hurd Smith (January 29, 1840 – March 1, 1918) was a U.S. Army officer notorious for ordering indiscriminate retaliation on the island of Samar in response to what is called the Balangiga massacre during the Philippine–American War.

Smith's plan involved stopping the flow of food and causing extensive destruction in order to make the people of Samar abandon their support for the rebels out of fear and malnutrition and turn to the Americans instead. He ordered, "kill everyone over the age of ten [and make the island] a howling wilderness." Court-martialed for his conduct of operations on Samar, he was dubbed "Hell Roaring Jake" Smith, "The Monster", and "Howling Jake" by the press as a result. Most estimates are that American soldiers killed between 2,000 and 2,500 civilians. Some Filipino historians put the number as high as 5,000 civilians. Some sources place the death toll as high as 50,000, but these are now believed to have resulted from typographical errors and misreading of documents.