Race and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Ages of Territorial and Market Expansion, 1840-1900

E. Nathaniel Gates

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135661298
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First Published in 1998. Explores the concept of "race" The term "race, " which originally denoted genealogical or class identity, has in the comparatively brief span of 300 years taken on an entirely new meaning. In the wake of the Enlightenment it came to be applied to social groups. This ideological transformation coupled with a dogmatic insistence that the groups so designated were natural, and not socially created, gave birth to the modern notion of "races" as genetically distinct entities. The results of this view were the encoding of "race" and "racial" hierarchies in law, literature, and culture. How "racial" categories facilitate social control
The articles in the series demonstrate that the classification of humans according to selected physical characteristics was an arbitrary decision that was not based on valid scientific method. They also examine the impact of colonialism on the propagation of the concept and note that "racial" categorization is a powerful social force that is often used to promote the interests of dominant social groups. Finally, the collection surveys how laws based on "race" have been enacted around the world to deny power to minority groups. A multidisciplinary resource
This collection of outstanding articles brings multiple perspectives to bear on race theory and draws on a wider ranger of periodicals than even the largest library usually holds. Even if all the articles were available on campus, chances are that a student would have to track them down in several libraries and microfilm collections. Providing, of course, that no journals were reserved for graduate students, out for binding, or simply missing. This convenient set saves students substantial time and effort by making available all the key articles in one reliable source. Authoritative commentary
The series editor has put together a balanced selection of the most significant works, accompanied by expert commentary. A general introduction gives important background information and outlines fundamental issues, current scholarship, and scholarly controversies. Introductions to individual volumes put the articles in context and draw attention to germinal ideas and major shifts in the field. After reading the material, even a beginning student will have an excellent grasp of the basics of the subject.

OPPOSITION OF NEGRO NEWSPAPERS TO AMERICAN PHILIPPINE POLICY, 1899–1900^*

George P. Marks, III

By the terms of the Treaty of Paris, December 10, 1898, the Philippine Islands were ceded to the United States by Spain. The battle over ratification of the treaty in January and February, 1899 brought forth two opposing views as to the justice and correctness of accepting the Philippines and other former Spanish colonies. Opposition to the treaty was led by the Anti-Imperialist League, whose chief spokesman in the Senate was Richard F. Pettigrew of South Dakota. Senator Pettigrew and the anti-imperialists throughout the country were vehemently against the annexation of the Philippines on the grounds that it was a fundamental departure from American principles of government by the consent of the governed and the solemn declaration of President McKinley in December, 1897 that forcible annexation according to the American code of morality would be criminal aggression. To many the war fought for suffering humanity in Cuba was now being turned into an unjust struggle by the United States government to deprive the Philippines of their national independence.

The Philippine-American War lasted from the outbreak of hostilities on February 4, 1899 to March, 1901, when Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, the spearhead of the Philippine Army and President of the new republic, was captured. This period marked the high point of anti-imperialist agitation. Although three studies exist on the anti-imperialist movement,¹ none of them deals with the position of sections of the Negro people on the question of imperialism. This essay attempts to show that certain Negro newspapers and their readers were involved in the general anti-imperialist struggle, whether or not they were formally associated with the Anti-Imperialist League. It excludes, for the most part, those Negro newspapers which favored imperialism, an important topic that will be dealt with in a later paper.

The Parsons Weekly Blade, December 10, 1898, assailed the “highway robbery” of seizing Spain’s colonial possessions. This gobbling up of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippine Islands for “trading stock” was

… done in the name of humanity … by a nation that shows by its actions at home that the principles of humanity are an unknown factor when the treatment of the American Negro is taken into consideration.

The “high ones” in the United States government had run into “a snag in the game of snatch-grab” in the Philippine Islands and were courting disaster. The Filipinos were to be congratulated for their stand, the Weekly Blade said, “for they can only imagine what sort of rap [?] they are to get by letting themselves in America’s grasp.”²

The United States government should not “stretch out … to govern semi-civilized peoples thousands of miles away” until “it can put itself in a position to govern civilized barbarians right here at home.”³ In support of its anti-imperialist argument, the Weekly Blade stated that the majority of Cubans now realized that the object of the Spanish-American War “was … the greed for gain” and were determined to “see that Mc-Kinley’s policy is not carried out.” The leaders of the Filipinos could not put any trust in the United States government and if

… the force of arms is attempted to bring them under subjugation … that day will the United States unloose the chains that bind her to the brow of the hill — and … will plunge … into eternal destruction.⁴

The Illinois Record heartily approved of Senator Mason’s anti-expansion speech of January, 1899, especially his remarks about the murder of the Negro Postmaster Baker and the work of the white supremacist mobs in Illinois, North Carolina, and South Carolina.⁵

It [expansion] is a question that has agitated the minds of ten million American Negroes, who look with fear and suspicion upon the motives of those most anxious to extend the strong arm of protection around a people not unlike the Negroes of this country …⁶

One of the most trenchant arguments Negroes can make against expansion, according to the Record, was the introduction of the “great American race prejudice”⁷ into the acquired territory.

John W. Harris, editor of the Philadelphia Tribune, ripped into the imperialistic seizure of Spain’s former possessions. “What could be more scandously [sic] perfidious than our pretensions of engaging in war with Spain to free Cuba? … Cuba will be less free now than ever before.” The Cuban soldiers while they fought Spain for three years were brave and sturdy patriots. Now that the United States was in a position to take the island they were “rag tags too ignorant and indolent to govern themselves.” Further:

If these Cubans should be left in control the American will bend every energy and resort to all sorts of intrigues in an endeavor to prove to the world that the Cubans are incapable of self-government and unworthy of independence in order to justify further aggression on our part …. We will justify a seizure of Cuba by alleging a desire to teach her people self government; we will justify the taking of Hawaii on the score of an alleged desire to teach her people our religion and civilization; we have not hit upon a better excuse yet for seizing the Philippine archipelago than the alleged necessity for a coaling station.…⁸

The Broad Ax of Salt Lake City came out unequivocally against the government’s imperialistic program of annexing and ruling the erstwhile colonies of Spain. The United States, it said,

does not posses the right or at least it should not attempt … to control the people which inhabit those distant islands until it is able to protect the rights of each and every citizen within the confines of the present government.…⁹

While supporting the anti-imperialist speech of Sen. McLaurin of South Carolina, the Broad Ax disagreed with his proposed amendment to the Constitution “‘placing all the inferior races in this country and the inhabitants of the Philippines beneath the plane of the white man … that by pursuing such a course the negro or race problem will be forever settled in this country.’”¹⁰

The Broad Ax approved the vote of Senator J. L. Rawlins against the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, February 6, 1899. Senator Rawlins “was eminently right” when he said “‘its ratification means the sacrifice of many lives and the expenditure of many millions.’” Despite the paper’s warm backing of Senator Rawlins’ anti-expansionist statements and vote, “his thrust at the inhabitants of those islands and the darker races which inhabit other portions of the far east was uncalled for” and was not relevant to the matter under dispute.¹¹

The Southern Republican said that “[P.B.S.] Pinchback, Jim Lewis and other Negro political pap-seekers” should be read out of good society because they advocated “putting the Cubans and Philippines under the yoke of American prejudice” at the December, 1898 meeting of the Afro-American Council.

If the Cubans and Philippines themselves want annexation with the United States, well and good. But to force it on them would be criminal…. We believe in the immortal principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. All just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. We are opposed to ‘expansion’ vi et armis. We have been taught it was unAmerican and it is surely unrepublican.¹²

The Washington Bee applauded the speech of Rep. George H. White¹³ of North Carolina in which he showed that many persons inimical to the Negro had been elected by theft, fraud, and assassination, but disagreed with him on expansion.

A majority of the Negroes in this country are opposed to expansion. A government that is powerless to protect its own citizens should never attempt to seize other governments by invasion and throw around them an American protectorate, which is nothing more than political and physical oppression. Expansion is a fraud and the American negro has long since come to the conclusion that before any government attempts to throw the protecting arm around a foreign foe, it should first protect its own citizens.¹⁴

The ratification of the peace treaty was approved by the Bee, not because it favored the acquisition of the Philippines, the annexation of which would be a public calamity, but rather to end the state of war with Spain.¹⁵

The concensus of opinion among the Negro citizens … was naturally opposed to a ratification of the treaty, upon the ground that if they were denied their rights in this country, the same conditions would obtain in the Philippines when once the whites got control.¹⁶

The American Baptist at the time of the debate over the treaty thought that the discussion on the annexation of territory could not be confined to the right of the government to acquire such territory. “The matter of the treatment of these people who belong to the dark skinned races is a matter which concerns us.” Therefore, “…it is doubtful whether it [civilization as practiced in the United States] ought to be extended to our newly acquired territory.” Experiences and not promises were important in determining the government’s future conduct and

the treatment which the Indians, the Chinese, and the Negroes have received at the hands of the white Americans speaks in no uncertain tones—it would be deplorable to have the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands treated as the Indians have been treated or the people of Cuba or Porto Rico ruled as the Negroes of the south have been ruled.…

The “plain duty” of the United States government was to remedy its own scandalous abuses rather than to extend the system under which they arose to other people.¹⁷

The Indianapolis Recorder adopted a firm opposition to the Administration’s Philippine policy in the first seven months of 1899. Then it completely switched its...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Introduction
• Volume Introduction
• The White Man’s Burden
• Initial Contacts: Redeeming Texas from Mexicans, 1821–1836
• The Origins of Anti-Mexican Sentiment in the United States
• “Scarce More Than Apes”: Historical Roots of Anglo American Stereotypes of Mexicans in the Border Region
• Mexican Opinion, American Racism, and the War of 1846
• The Slavery Problem in the Diplomacy of the American Civil War
• Sambo and the Heathen Chinee: Californians’ Racial Stereotypes in the Late 1870s
• Frederick Douglass and American Diplomacy in the Caribbean
• Racism and the Imperialist Campaign
• Imperialism and the Anglo-Saxon
• The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines, and the Inequality of Man
• Race and American Expansion in Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1895–1905
• The Racial Overtones of Imperialism as a Campaign Issue, 1900
• Black Americans and the Quest for Empire, 1898–1903
• David Fagen: An Afro-American Rebel in the Philippines, 1899–1901
• Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden
• Opposition of Negro Newspapers to American Philippine Policy, 1899–1900
• Racial Anglo-Saxonism and the American Response to the Boer War
• Black Americans and the Boer War, 1899–1902
• Acknowledgments