an african american soldier in the philippine revolution an.pdf

An African American Soldier in the Philippine Revolution: An Homage to David Fagen E. San Juan, Jr. African American soldiers prior to being shipped to the Philippines, 1900 Let him never dream that his bullet ’s scream went wide of its island mark, Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the dark. – William Vaughn Moody, “On A Soldier Fallen in the Philippines” (1901) The pr oblem of the twentieth century is the pr oblem of the color-line – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Af rica, in American and the islands of the sea. – W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) God damn the U.S.f or its vile conduct in the Philippi ne Isles. – William James, Anti-Impe rialist League Records (1899) Copyright © 2009 by E. San Juan, Jr. and Cultural Log ic, ISSN 1097-3087 E. San Juan, Jr. 2 Unless news of a disaster grabs the headlines – the eruption of a volcano that drove the U.S. military forces from Clark and Subic bases two decades ago, or of American missionaries kidnapped by the Muslim separatists, the Abu Sayyaf (labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department in 2003) – the Philippines scarcely figures in the U.S. public consciousness. Not even as a tourist destination, or as the source of mail order brides and domestic help. Some mistake the Philippines as islands in the Caribbean, or somewhere near Hawaii or Tahiti; others wondered then if “them Philippians were the folks St. Paul wrote the epistle to.” September 11, 2001 changed this somewhat. When U.S. occupation troops in Iraq continued to suffer casualt