ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a largely forgotten but significant zoological expedition to the Philippines in the early 1890s and its role in later influencing the establishment of a U.S. colonial regime in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The two leaders of what was called the Menage Scientific Expedition undertook the expedition for scientific reasons and did not expect that they would ever return there when they went back to the United States. An unexpected turn of geopolitics, however, gave them reason to go back to the Philippines again, this time for military and political reasons. The Menage Expedition, then, was not just a scientific expedition; it was prelude to U.S. colonialism in the Philippines.
