Americans seeking to justify the annexation of the Philippines turned to racial-exceptionalist claims against the "anti-imperialist's" national-exceptionalist ones. That is, supporters of colonialism argued that as "Anglo-Saxons" connected to the British Empire by blood, culture, and history, Americans were destined to acquire, and competent to rule, an overseas colonial empire. The power of this argument derived in part from the density of Anglo-American social, political, and intellectual contacts in the period; it was demonstrated in comparisons that Americans and Britons made between the Anglo-Boer War and the Philippine-American War. But the argument was countered by "anti-imperialists" who relied on the national exceptionalist claim that the United States' unique republican mission precluded overseas colonialism. Anglo-Saxon identity, they also argued, did not necessarily require the acquisitions of colonies. As a result of this debate, advocates of colonialism increasingly employed national-exceptionalist claims about the uniquely benevolent features of the American colonial government of the Philippines, although they also actively traded policy ideas with neighboring European colonial states.
To frame these issues, ask students to consider certain images of--and questions about--Anglo-Saxonism and empire:
Question 1: Defining an Empire
How do you define an empire? When does a state become one? Is the United States an empire? If so, when did it become one? In what way is the 1897 image of a fictional meeting between Queen Victoria and President McKinley a representation of empire? What else, besides tea, is Queen Victoria inviting McKinley to participate in?
The goal here is to get students thinking critically about what they include and don't include under the rubrics "empire" and "imperialism." They might focus on territorial conquest or other impositions of power by one state on another, industrial or commercial exploitation of a state by another state or a private institution, or cultural dominance via religion, language, or mass media.
Question 2: Racial Ideologies
What kind of contacts between Americans and Britons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries contributed to the notion of a shared "Anglo-Saxon" heritage? What exceptional features were Anglo-Saxons said to possess? On what grounds might some Americans object to the notion of the United States as an Anglo-Saxon country?
The aim is to have students think about the racial ideologies of the period as far more than irrational pseudo-science. They were serious arguments, which crystallized in specific settings and around specific political projects.
How does the map represent the boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon world? Why would someone draw and publish such a map? Ask students to consider how the map darkens the territories of the British Empire, the continental United States, and its new overseas colonies, thus envisioning a single Anglo-Saxon region instead of separate national ones.
What does the photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Turk's railway journey in Burma tell us about Anglo-American encounters in the colonial world?
What does Joseph Earle Stevens' adoption of the white duck uniform and his membership in the Manila Club suggest about his self-image as an "Anglo-Saxon"?
Why are the American Dave and the Englishman Will in the novel Between Boer and Briton able to befriend each other so quickly when they first meet? What do their family ties symbolize?
Question 3: Anglo-Saxon Racial Exceptionalism
What political purpose did Anglo-Saxon racial exceptionalism serve during the Spanish-Cuban-American War and Philippine-American War? Whom was the argument directed against? The goal here is to show students how American Anglo-Saxonism promoted solidarity between the United States and Britain in their imperial policies overseas. Consider the solidarity between the two empires represented by the 1898 Uncle Sam image based on the 1892 Cecil Rhodes image. Similarly, consider the juxtaposition of stereopticon sets of the Spanish-Cuban-American War, the Philippine-American War, and the Anglo-Boer War in the 1900 Sears catalog. Recall the opposing "anti-imperialist" argument that presented the United States as exceptional among nations for its republicanism, which precluded overseas colonialism. Then ask students: How did Anglo-Saxon racial exceptionalism and U.S. national exceptionalism overlap? How did they conflict? What does the 1899 cartoon "The White (?) Man's Burden" suggest about American reactions to seeing a supposedly "exceptional" nation--the United States--sharing the colonial "burdens" of the European powers?
Question 4: U.S. Colonialism
How did the legitimation of U.S. colonialism change after the declared end of the Philippine-American War? Now the goal is to have students understand that once American colonialists had a state of their own to point to, they no longer had to turn to Anglo-Saxon rationales or British precedents. Indeed, having a colonial state in the Philippines allowed them to recapture national-exceptionalist terms, arguing that American rule was not only unique but also better than European colonial rule. But how seriously did American colonial officials take national exceptionalism when they were making policy? What does U.S. colonial Agricultural Secretary A. W. Prautch's display of Philippine products at a fair in British Singapore suggest about bonds between the two colonial powers?
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Remark: My view: As it is:
Absolute and total ludicris. The philosophy of empire and subjugation of foreign peoples as a manifestation of a state's racial superiority is absolutely unconfounded. These words and philosophies were used by the conquorors as a means to legitimize their barbarity in forcing idealogues and policy on indigenous people; as well as to destroy their innate moral will. The destruction of the pride of the natives and installing arbitrary concepts such as racial superiority via social darwinism is nothing but imperialist horse feces (no pun intended). To undermine the moral will of the Philippines and foreign lands, to retard their natural resources for the benefit and consumption of the 'mother state', to spread their religion and have some sort of cultural imperial effects; thereby controlling the people via a long term basis. To secure their hold. That is the reason for such policies and arguments.
The Spanish. Long have have the Spanish dominated the Philippines, and to this day, their imperialist policies are ever present in the Philippines. Roman Catholicism, of which I am part of and over 80% of the Philippine population (over 80 million) belong to it: yet it was a faith that was, and is argued to this day by academians, used to convert the indigenous population; to hispanify them so that the Spanish conquistadores could legitimately rule over the islands without fear of muslim uprisings. The faith was intially spread via the sword. Look at the historiography of the Spanish Empire in North and South America. The destruction of the classical, beautiful, technologically unique indigenous civilizations of the Aztec, the Inca, the Seminole, and the Carriba were manifested. Millions of inigenous Amerindians were liquidated by diseases such as small pox, syphilus, gonorea, the bubonic plague, cow pox etc. Many more died to starvation as the Spaniards subdivided the regions and peoples to work for their haciendas; millions more died in servitude to the Spaniards searching for raw natural resources such as: gold, copper, silver, hemp, tobacco etc. The Spaniards, yes, were the ones first to bring and initiate African slavery to the new world, to suffice the displaced population of dying amerindians. The africans were imported from the gold coast to work in the carribbean islands, in New Spain (current Mexico), Grand Columbia, and Real Peru (both of which were viceroyalties of Spain in south america) in sugar plantations, tobacco plantations etc. The spaniards initiated this slavery system, which would eventually be adopted by other european empires, most notabley the French, the English, the Dutch.
The Philippines was not immune to this system, as many of the classical civilizations such as the Rajanate of Luzon, Rajanate of Maguindanao, and the Sulu Empire were reduced to vassals. The Spanish manifestation and use of 'fiestas', 'barangays', 'gobernillacidos' are mere samples of how Madrid controlled the people, taxed them, etc. To this day, over 100 years after the fall of the Spanish, their effects are present in the psyche of the Filipino. Even their names are still in use.
The Americans were merely late to the scene of Imperiaism. And their usage of racial superiority, is null. The Spaniards used the very same concept; they believed in the racial inferiority of the indio; they believed that he was physically, mentally and spiritually enslaved to the Spanish. That view was cracked when the Spanish colonial wars errupted in the new world, where the 'inferior indios' of Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela errupted in open war for independence. One by one, those colonies defeated the 'superior caucasoid' Spanish. Thousands of Spaniards surrendered to the 'indios'; and the mighty Spanish Fleet was mangled in fighting 'rebelliosido' pirates.
Even in the Philippines, when the Philippine Revolution errupted in 1897, and after the return of Aquinaldo from Hong Kong, the Philippine Revolutionary Army practically defeated the Spanish garrisons in the Philippine Islands. Liberated. All that was left of Spanish presence was Manila. And that itself wasn't taken because Aguinaldo honorably accepted Commodore Dewey's plea to Aguinaldo to spare Manila for the Americans. The 'indio' (the Filipino) was capable of defeating the Spanish conquistadore and by that right! By that right, the theory of white racial superiority was overturned.
The only reasons why the Americans defeated the Philippines was not because of racial superiority. It was simply the fact that the Revolution had bled the Philippines during the war for Spanish independence. Thousands of man power had been exhausted, diseases were spreading; and yet, the Revolution trained 70,000 soldiers that defeated some 15,000 Spanish well trained soldiers. Let me tell you, that most of the Filipino soldiers weren't even trained; many of them didnt even have guns, but bolos and spears. Yet, were capable of deating Spanish artillery units, spanish armed infantry and cavalry.
America won the war because it utilized racist policies against the Filipino. They used cut and burn policies. Where they would go into villages and burn them, kill the populace: a historical precedent of the Mai Lai incident in Vietnam.
Americans considered Filipinos "Brown Niggers", and treated us as so. They brought in over 100,000 soldiers from the United States to 'suppress' the Philippines. With that, included rotating machine guns, howitzers, a large navy, and cavalry. The Filpino soldier was armed with only a bandera, a white uniform, spanish guns and bolos. We were able to bleed America with guirall warefare, and killed over 5,000 American soldiers (wounding over 20,000).
The United States suffered more in the Philippine-American War than it did against its war with Spain. Had the Philippines been given the same advantages as the Americans, we would have reversed the outcome.
I personally don't believe in racial superiority and racial bigotry. It is unfounded and without basis. Rizal is proof of that.
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