HIST 221 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Negrito
19 Oct 2018
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Department
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Professor
The Arlington Cemetery is a landscape of national sacrifice
by justifying the ongoing colonial war in the Philippines
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Contingency requires attention to two dynamics
Character of race by war: the Filipinos had been
engaged in the Spanish colonial racial precepts
○
War itself - racial ideologies and changing strategies
and tactics moved together, Filipino and Euro-
American political cultures, patterns of warfare were
important markers of racial status
Civilized people fought conventionally and
savage people waged guerilla wars
§
○
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The taking of Manila by US troops introduced a tense 6
month period characterized by Filipino and American
interaction and competitive state-building
US soldiers became drunk and disorderly or failed to
pay their debts
○
Soldiers commonly characterized Filipinos as filthy,
diseased, lazy and treacherous and applied the "N"
word to them
○
One soldier said that the war would have not broken
out if the army of occupation treated Filipinos as
people
○
After the seizure of Manila, white troops began to
apply home treatment for coloured people
○
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During the last months the Treaty of Paris was being
negotiated, Filipinos sought recognition by launching legal
and historical arguments for sovereignty of the Philippine
Republic
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Two people Wilcox and Sargent worked their way across
Luzon but the telegraph lines brought word of the Treaty
from Hong Kong newspapers and they faced stiffer
restrictions
People treated Americans more coldly
○
Travellers were not allowed to carry weapons, come
within 200 meters or take any photographs of them
○
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People thought that since the Americans had liberated
their slaves they wanted a colony in the Philippines so they
could get more slaves
They were told of the treatment of the black
population in America
○
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The war was challenged by US based anti-imperialist
societies and these societies leaned toward independents
and reformers and brought together a loose coalition of
conservative and white supremacist Democrats
Their initial hope was to turn US public opinion
against Philippine annexation
○
McKinley set up Philippine Commissions to counter
anti-imperialist claims (annexation of the country
would lead to US corruption and degrade US labour
by using Asiatic immigrants)
The commission's project was aimed at the
domestic US public to produce a record of
events in the islands that would justify US
aggression and undermine anti-imperialist
argument
§
○
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US population was racialized as Anglo-Saxons whose
overseas conquests were legitimized by racial ties to the
British Empire
The war was an extension of Western conquest
○
Unlike other races, they "liberated" the peoples they
conquered
○
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The Philippine populations were viewed as tribalized
Filipinos who were evolving from savagery to civilization
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The Philippine population was comprised of three races
Negritos - a group near the bottom of the human
series that had been displaced by invasions of
Indonesians and Malayans with a superior racial
constitution
○
Indonesian
○
Malayan
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Tribes were a small minority of the Philippine
population
○
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The US troops saw the enemy in racial terms
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Americans formed a colonial vocabulary that focused on
hatreds and lent American troops a sense of camaraderie
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By winning a conventional war, the Philippine army could
win the world's support for independence but a victory in a
guerrilla battle could mean losing the war for international
recognition
Combatants who stray from principle place
themselves in a separate classification and are
incompetent in the management of civil affairs
○
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Civilization meant the acceptance of US sovereignty
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Racial-exterminist sentiment was not uncommon in US
soldiers' diaries, songs, etc.
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A document captured by US soldiers said that Filipinos
inside the US occupied city of Mani were to revolt in
preparation for an invasion
Not just US soldiers, but all whites in the city were to
be killed
○
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Reading: Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the US empire
Saturday, January 27, 2018
4:41 PM
Document Summary
Reading: race-making and colonial violence in the us. The arlington cemetery is a landscape of national sacrifice by justifying the ongoing colonial war in the philippines. Character of race by war: the filipinos had been engaged in the spanish colonial racial precepts. War itself - racial ideologies and changing strategies and tactics moved together, filipino and euro- American political cultures, patterns of warfare were important markers of racial status. Civilized people fought conventionally and savage people waged guerilla wars. The taking of manila by us troops introduced a tense 6 month period characterized by filipino and american interaction and competitive state-building. Us soldiers became drunk and disorderly or failed to pay their debts. Soldiers commonly characterized filipinos as filthy, diseased, lazy and treacherous and applied the n word to them. One soldier said that the war would have not broken out if the army of occupation treated filipinos as people.
