Chapter 1, All in the Family
• Originally a Spanish colony, the pseudo-Asian country of the Philippines has a remarkable history; Ferdinand Magellan finds the island chain much by mistake, the Spaniards set up a trading post in Manila and missionaries begin the process of converting the locals to Catholicism.
• Spain isolates their new "possession" for more than three hundred years; in the 1800s, a liberal Spanish regime opens up trade, and the huge Philippine sugar trade begins enticing numerous other countries to the area.
• As Filipinos gain power and prestige, they strain against the Spanish bureaucracy; young Filipino men are educated abroad for the first time and are executed by the Spanish for their dangerous longing for independence.
• In this same time period, the United States is going through some huge growing pains of its own.
• The U.S. warship "Maine" explodes in Cuba in 1898 under mysterious circumstances and...
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